Australia: Moreton Island
Moreton Island. A day trip full of both relaxing and action packed fun sure to entertain all types of travelers.
Upon arriving by ferry to Moreton Island, my brother and I were a little overwhelmed by all the activity taking place as you exit the boat. There were plenty of people who also signed up for the day trip we did online and a good amount of others who traveled to explore the island on their own. Luckily our tour company was super organized and quickly split our hundred plus group into three categories, which decided what activity we would start our days with. We were placed in the group to go sandboarding first, so we shuffled into large buses and set off inland to the sand dunes. We arrived after a bumpy twenty minutes at the dunes feeling as if we had been transported to a completely different climate to the lovely beaches we were just standing on. The dunes were massive and vast, looking like mountains in the distance. We were each handed a sandboard and started our march to the peak of the dunes. I thought it was a tiresome walk but not too bad, little did I know of what was to come. We eventually reached the top and I was pretty intimidated as the first person to go down wiped out and went flailing off their board. But after a couple minutes of delay I felt I had to go down to not ruin the fun, so I toughened up and went flying down.
It was scary for sure as you are going around 20 MPH down a dune, with nothing protecting your face from oncoming sand pellets, so my eyes were getting attacked. It felt like someone was throwing small rocks into my eyes but I felt I had to keep them open to try and steer the rocket I was on. Once I reached the bottom I realized how fun it was outside of my terror, so I tried running back up to go again. Then I realized the mistake I made by being so out of shape. I was exhausted about a tenth of the way up the dune. It felt like I was sinking and losing a step for every two I took. I didn't want to waste a lot of time given we would only be at the dunes for an hour, but I was gasping for air at this point. I would eventually have to sit down twice on the dune to make it back up, taking at least 15 minutes for something that would take under thirty seconds with some stairs. I would do this routine three more times, I would’ve liked to do more but my energy levels were running on zero by this point. On my final run I was too tired to keep the front of my board up, so I let go and was nailed by a wave of sand. My mouth was drier than the Sahara at this point, and my contacts were covered in sand. I had to painfully peel off my contacts which were embedded with grains of sand by this point. I also hadn’t realized I had gotten scratches across my knees and elbows from rubbing against the sand as I went down. But the fun outweighed the pain. I’m a true warrior after all.
Our next activity was snorkeling, a far less scary activity and one I love doing whenever I have the chance. There were a bunch of man made reefs using sunken boats that were swarming with sea life, with fish of all colors and sizes swimming around. It felt as if I was swimming in a moving rainbow. It was truly beautiful. We also were lucky enough to see a few turtles beneath us, which looked majestic. They came very close to us but we were told not to touch them, so I swam away but kept my eyes on them. I wish I knew any types of fish so I could identify them here, but all I noticed was the colors, which were as vibrant as possible. After an hour we had to swim back in for our next activity, but luckily enough I would still be able to get a good view of the fish during that.
Kayaking was our final activity, and they were see-through kayaks which made it possible to see fish swimming directly beneath you which is a very fun experience you typically lose when kayaking. We were also handed a piece of bread to use as feed to attract the fish to our boats, and to say the least, the bread worked. From the tiniest pieces of bread schools of fish would come swarming to the surface to get it. With the see-through kayaks, we could see the fish perfectly through the water and got to continue to observe the vibrant wildlife while drying off in the picture perfect weather. I was hoping one of the turtles would come up to eat, but we weren’t that lucky. Still it was a relaxing way to end an otherwise tiring day.
By the time we got back on the ferry to head home, my brother and I were both exhausted. Yet we were also extremely happy as the day was one of the most enjoyable we had experienced in Australia at that point. We got to experience some thrilling sandboarding that was more fun than we could have expected. And then we got to relax and enjoy Australia’s beautiful wildlife while snorkeling and kayaking. Overall, Moreton Island provided multiple engaging, fun activities to fill an action packed day.
