I hope that you’ve packed your swimwear, because I’m about to take you to Moreton Island and the Tangalooma Resort! Moreton Island is the worlds third largest sand island and it’s just a 75 minute ferry ride from Brisbane. The sand is white, the water is crystal clear (and nicely blue) and there’s an artificial reef to discover with plenty of snorkeling opportunities. The resort even get’s visited by wild dolphins that you can feed! It’s also a really cheap getaway from Brisbane, since the price (incl. ferry and 1 night accommodation) start under $100/person.
Stepping off the ferry felt like stepping into a Holiday bliss. All the stress magically disappeared and the only thing that matter was how fast we could get into the sea. The first thing I did was to look down into the water and this is what I saw! The sea was filled with fish. How fantastic isn’t that?
The island is mainly untouched and it’s not much else to do other than admire the nature. There’s basically two options if you want to spend the night there- the Tangalooma Resort or camping (which will require a car to get to the campsites). We stayed at the Tangalooma Resort in the building right off the pier (which also happened to be the entrance to Scary Island in one of the Scooby Doo movies). Okay, I’m a sad person, but I thought it was a little cool.
Anyhow! The resort has plenty of free activities to keep you occupied. There’s tennis, archery, beach volleyball to just name a few, but we didn’t do a single one of them. Instead, we sat on the beach, played in the sea, went for walks around the island and went on a snorkeling tour of the reef.
The artificial reef (Tangalooma Wrecks) is one of the island’s main attractions and is made up by 15 old boats. They have all been deliberately sunken and their original purpose was to act as a breakwall for smaller boats. They have since slowly created an artificial reef and is today the home to thousands of fishes and other sea creatures.
The reef proved to be very close to the beach and can be reached without a boat. You can easily snorkel along the reef without a tour as long as you’re aware of your surroundings. There’s a few narrow passages between some of the ships, so don’t forget to look down into the water while you’re swimming. The ships are also very rusty and have a few sharp items sticking out so please be a little careful! The snorkeling tour guide forced us to wear a wetsuit to protect against the rusty ships.
There’s plenty of fish around the reef and we even saw a sting ray, a wobbegong shark and a sea cow. The highlight for me was the shark since I had no idea that sharks could even look like that! It was just resting on the bottom of one of the wrecks and looked a little bit like a flat blob. The sea was completely covered in fish, but that’s because the snorkeling crew cheated a little bit and used fish food to lure out as many as possible. It took us about an hour to slowly snorkel along the reef, but I could easily have stayed longer!
The days on the island is best spent swimming and going for walks unless you have a car. It’s very relaxing to slowly stroll along the beach with your feet in the water, but 24 hours is the perfect amount of time on the islands. There’s plenty of time to relax, sit on the beach, snorkel etc, but it’s not enough time for it to get boring.
It would be different if you have a car though, since there’s supposed to be a few really nice spots around that you can’t get to without a card. The roads on the island are made of.. Sand, of course, so you’ll need a 4WD to be able to get around.
It was finally time for the main event at 7pm! Are you as excited as me?? I’ve been looking forward to this since the day I first heard about it. Dolphins have almost been like a mythical creature for me, since they don’t exist close to anywhere I have ever lived. Getting to feed a wild dolphin was like a dream come true! I’m sure that you can imagine how excited I was when the dolphins started to turn up by the pier. They are all wild, but they are also used to being fed most nights.
It all happened so quickly. Everyone lined up to wash our hands with a sterile solution and to grab one small fish each. Me and V got called into the water, the dolphins swam around us for a few times before grabbing the fish that were in our hands and then it was all over. We were quickly brushed to the side to leave room for a new group of people. It was over in less than 30 seconds and I really wish that we could have had some more time with the dolphins. My dolphin accidentally nibbled on my fingers and I think that it was more of a shock to me than the dolphin.
What: Moreton Island/Tangalooma Resort
Where: Moreton Island, 75 minute ferry from Brisbane
Price: $91/person (incl. the ferry and 1 nights accommodation) if you are travelling with Micat and share a room with 3 other people. So it can be a very cheap getaway from Brisbane.
Transport: There’s two ferries serving the island from Brisbane: Micat and the Tangalooma Resorts own ferry. However, Micat is your only option if you want to bring along a car since the Tangalooma one is passengers only. We went with Tangalooma Resorts own ferry (just add it to your booking) and paid $80 each for a return ticket. The Micat is cheaper with $50/person for a return ticket, but its departures from the Port of Brisbane which can be tricky to get to without a car.
Accommodation: The cheapest option is $165/night for a room with 4 beds in low peak. Which means that the accommodation is only $41/person if you are sleeping 4 people in the same room. All overnight stays at the resort includes the dolphin feeding. Don’t expect anything fancy, but the room was much better than I had expected.
Food: The resort has a few restaurants and a cafeteria. I don’t know about the restaurants, but the cafeteria reminded me of a hospital cafeteria, so it’s not very exciting. It’s overpriced, unexciting dishes and you are better off bringing your own food. We had a fully equipped kitchen in our room.