Moreton Island

Friday, 1st of October:

On Wednesday night I returned after spending three days on the beautiful Moreton aka Monkey Island. I had to go there alone because the rest of the house went up to the Whitsunday Islands. Since I have to start saving money, I couldn't afford going with them. I will go there anyway with my dear friend Arne.

It wasn't very easy to get to Monkey Island. First, I had to find a train to take me as close as possible to the Port of Brisbane. There is no bus, train or whatsoever going to the harbor. So I had to go to some small station close by and catch a taxi for the rest of the way to the ferry. There I met my crew and a nice ship (the MICAT) to take me to Monkey Island.

On the way to the Island I saw many scary sea monsters. On the picture above you see, quite impressively, a whale.

Monkey Island is coming close. It's the 2nd biggest sand island on earth. No concrete roads, just sand. One needs a 4-weel-drive to master this beauty.

The ferry arrives just next to a harbor made out of ship wrecks. Imagine, the sank 15 ships to create a harbor and protect other ships from the stormy sea. Only Aussies think of such folly thing to do.

Here you can see these ship wrecks. One can dive there and see amazing corals, fish and obviously the wrecks. I was simply struck by what I saw when I went snorkeling.

Big sand dunes. I ran down one of these a little too fast. I couldn't stop and hammered on the ground. The blow made it hard to breath for some time. But a pirate knows no pain.

Beautiful sunset, the wrecks and a tiny ship I captured during the first day.

On the campground, where I stayed, I was able to make fire for cooking and having some light. It get dark very early here in Australia. At 6.30pm it's quite dark already. Annoying, especially when camping.

Chicken.

On my way to find some sunken treasure at the wrecks.

Simply amazing. A desert in the middly of the Island. White sand as far as the eye could see. A huge dune made it possible to go dune-surfing. (I couldn't go :-( since I had no board).

I left one day earlier than I wanted to because a storm was coming up and camping is only fun as long as you are having decent weather. Besides, it was getting boring being by myself.