Day 6 in Australia

In the morning we headed down to the docks to board for our trip on the "Tangaloom Jet" to the Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort on Moreton Island.

Moreton Island is right across Moreton Bay from Brisbane. It's the third largest sand island in the world with the larger Fraser and North Stradbroke Islands also near Brisbane. The Tangalooma resort is located on the west side of the island and they operate day trips to the resort for visitors as well as overnight stays. Unfortunately (or, as it turned out, fortunately) almost all the day trips from the resort were booked up by the time we got there. They seem to arrange every activity to take place at overlapping times so we didn't have much choice.

We decided to take the "Desert Safari" trip. This was a bus trip through a narrow sand road (of course) through the forest at incredible speeds to a sand dune in the middle of the island. Our first stop was to look at the different colours of sand on the dune. The colour comes from the decayed trees that once grew here.

We also found some natural glass that is formed during storms when the lightning strikes the sand.



The highlight of the trip was tobogganing down the sand dune. They gave us smooth waxed flexible boards and told us to be careful. Apparently people get hurt doing this.

It was a long hike to the top of the sand dune. The record in one trip (about 45 minutes) was 16 times up and down the hill.

Matthew climbed the hill and slid down with me on my back three times. Not a record, but he is 6 and the most trips that day for anyone was four.

Above are a few frames from a movie that Jocelyn took of Matthew and I sliding down the hill. As you can see it is a long way down. I only got the GPS to work for one slide and it seemed to think that our top speed was about 30km/h but I don't know how much I trust it. It seemed much faster :-)

Another view of the sand toboggan hill and our bus. It was very hot in the sun that day.



One of the trips that was fully booked when we arrived was a snorkelling tour of Tangalooma Wrecks. It is an artificial reef made of sunken ships used as a breakwater for mooring boats. When we got back from the sand tobogganing we decided to walk down the beach toward the wrecks. We were told it was about a half hour walk and we could see them from the resort. When we got there we realized just how close they were to the beach and were kicking ourselves for not bringing a life jacket for Matthew. That was all that prevented him from swiming out to the wrecks. It also made the $26 tour seem a bit expensive.

I did swim out to the wrecks by myself to snorkel around and see what I could see. The sun was getting low and I was in the shadow of the wrecks. The visibility under the water was quite poor. I did see a lot of tropical looking fish but none of the pictures came out very good. The best pictures were above water of the wrecks themselves. It was really eerie swiming out the wrecks. The water between the beach and the wrecks is quite deep (too deep to see the bottom). This always gives me the willies. Even with all the snorkelling we do it is very rare for me to get in water where I can't see the bottom. That was almost as creepy as actually getting to the wrecks where I could see some shapes under the water. If we ever go back I will be sure to do this earlier in the day when there is more light and more people around to draw the attention of whatever is living inside the wrecks.

The last thing we did that night was one of the major attractions at the resort, and what gives its name. Overnight guests of the resort can hand feed the wild dolphins that come by every night for a free snack. The dolphins know that if they show up at the right time each night they will get some handouts. It was really neat watching them waiting for the food to start as the dolphins collected near the pier. They were swiming around on their backs chasing fish and jumping after them.

Matthew and Jocelyn got to go first while I took pictures from the pier. Yes, that is Jocelyn in the water with carnivores with lots of teeth. After this and the shark a few days earlier she may never go in the water again.