Fraser Island

After our day trip to Moreton Island we loaded ourselves back into the Hippie Camper and started to drive towards Hervey Bay. We stopped at a rest area that night and cooked satay chicken kebabs on our portable grill and ate dinner there and then continued on.

We arrived in Hervey Bay right around midnight and found a place to camp down for the night. We awoke around 6am and drove just outside of Hervey Bay to Riverheads where were were supposed to board our cruise over to Fraser Island for a day tour. We arrived at the boat dock at 7am only to find out that we weren't actually supposed to be there until 8am. It ended up being a blessing because I soon realized that I was missing one of my UGG boots from the Hippie Camper and we had to drive back to our campsite to look for it. We found in on the ground-Rob had knocked it out on accident on a late night bathroom break.

We made it back to the boat on time and cruised over to Fraser Island to begin our tour of the world's largest sand island.

Lake McKenzie on Fraser Island. It's a lake from pure rain water. So clear!

The sand is so fine you can use it to naturally exfoliate your skin.
I was so soft after this!

Ahhhhh

Hoop Pine

Our travel bus driving along the beach

Cruise ship wreckage on the beach

We got stuck in the sand! We all had to get off of the bus

Moreton Island-Tangalooma Wrecks

We woke up at 5am, disassembled our "bed" in the camper van, did our dishes in the sink from dinner last night and packed our bags for our day trip to Moreton Island. We had booked a boat to take us from Pinkemba (just outside of Brisbane) to Moreton Island and it was set to leave at 7am.


Moreton Island is the second largest sand island in the world (second only to Fraser Island which we'll be travelling to tomorrow). The island was formed as a result of sand movements caused by winds and waves and sea level change over thousands of years. It's about 38km long and 10km wide and apparently it looks almost the same today as it did thousands of years ago.


We just barely made it to the boat on time; we were the last two to board. Once we made it to the island we walked over the the Tangalooma Island Resort and had some coffee.

Moreton Island from the boat

After our coffee we walked down the beach towards the Tangalooma Wrecks.

The Tangalooma Wrecks are fifteen vessels that have been purposely sunk just off the coast of Moreton Island to give shelter for a boat anchorage. Among the ships are some which have seen service in Moreton Bay - the German built "Remora", the dredges "Maryborough" and "Platypus", the barges "Stingaree" "Seal" and "Morwong" and the whale chaser "KOS 1".

This is an amazing and popular snorkel site so Rob and I came prepared with our wetsuits and snorkels. Tangalooma Wrecks

Let the snorkeling begin!

The snorkeling was incredible. We were swimming around the boats, through portholes and around all of the ocean life. We even saw a Wobegon shark (they are harmless) on the ocean floor! We took plenty of pictures on our underwater camera so I'll add those pictures when I get them developed.

A minor injury from some coral.

After about two hours of snorkeling, we changed out of our wetsuits and dried off. We walked back to the resort and had lunch and visited the tour desk to see what else we could do on Moreton. We booked a Quad Bike Tour (four wheeler) for later that day. I didn't really want to drive one so we booked a tandem bike.

Lunch at the Tangalooma Resort

We then took a quick shower at the dive centre and then walked around the island and explored a little bit on our own:

Kookaburra!

Lounging by the pool

At 3pm it was time for our Quad Bike Tour! We met up with the rest of the group and our leaders at the jetty and got ready to take off.

We had to wear these dorky hair nets underneath our helmets

Ready to go!

I was the photographer on the back trying to take photos and hold on for dear life at the same time

We rode all around Moreton Island both on the beach and on some man made tracks/courses

We were going a little faster than some of the other people in the group so one of the leaders took us with him to do some cool stuff on our own. We rode straight down this STEEP hill twice! It was scary!

We arrived back at the jetty safe and sound just before it was time to board our 4pm boat back across to Pinkemba

Sunset on the way back from the island. We saw some dolphins swimming alongside the boat too.