Tangalooma Resort, Moreton Island

Today we went out to Tangalooma resort on Moreton Island.
We were originally booked to take the 7am boat which meant leaving the hotel at 5:30am, for a 6am check in. Fortunately mum pointed out that was an extremely long day so instead we caught the 10am boat out. There was quite a haze about, caused by bushfires south of here.

Not long after we arrived we headed off on our marine discovery tour. It was on a pontoon style boat with a glass bottom, we headed out to the Tangalooma wrecks - 15 ships intentionally wrecked to provide an artificial reed from the 60s to the 80s. There is a wide variety of marine life in Moreton Bay. We saw sting rays, star fish, a huge variety of fish, green turtles, dolphins but sadly no dugong. Over by the wrecks we fed the fish which lead to them swarming. Connor the cormorant came over. Apparently he comes over everyday, he’s not interested in the fish food but instead catches a small fish. Apart from a young backpacker all the others on the boat were seniors from the same tour. One of them spotted quite a bit of wildlife. In hindsight I should have gone and stood by him! You needed to be looking in the right place at the right time. The man saw a shark (possibly a bull shark), all the rest of us just saw the fish almost skipping along the top of the water to escape from the shark.
I was fortunate enough to see a turtle come up out of the water and go down again.

We didn’t really have anything planned for the afternoon. We had a late lunch followed by a dolphin talk. That was really interesting and gave us a good background for the dolphin feeding as well as the history of the program. We were even able to see the “gifts” that the dolphins have presented to the staff over the years. These have all been sea animals. The first gift was a dead moray eel.
A kookaburra feeding was followed by watching the sunset.

We could have fed the dolphins but instead chose to watch the feeding from the jetty. This was a wise choice as we had a great view of the dolphins frolicking while they waited for the feeding to commence. There was also a cheeky rescue pelican who really really wanted a fish as well. She missed out.

We headed back on the ferry after the dolphin feeding. The plan had been to order a taxi once we got to the ferry terminal but as I was on the phone to the taxi company we were approached by a taxi driver with a maxi taxi. He said he could take us for $35. There were already two groups in the taxi and he told them as we got in $35 each. Then as we were leaving he found another couple and told us the price would be $30.
We got back in time for mum to see the second half of the footy and see the Eagles beat Essendon.Read more