Hailey Goes To Oz: 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!