Moreton Island: Australia's Largest Sand Island

This past weekend, I travelled with 86 other exchange students to the largest sand island in Australia: Moreton Island. And let me tell ya, it was sandy. I have never had so much sand in so many different places. But it was still a wonderful weekend and just what I needed to revive my love of Australia.

In case you haven't noticed, my blogging has been a bit less frequent lately. This is because I was starting to get.... "bored". Not necessarily bored because of a lack of activities, but simply because I have become a little less excited about every little thing. I mean, I live here, I get to experience it every day and after about a month I was just tired of getting so excited. After discussing this issue with my oh so smart boyfriend, we concluded I was suffering from a very normal study abroad "condition", where things are really exciting at first and then they just kind of die down. Thankfully Australia is not a boring country and the trip to Moreton Island helped me to realize that.

On Friday morning we woke up really early, as in 5 am, in order to catch the bus. We bused with a large group to the ferry stop. We then took the ferry about an hour and half to get to Moreton Island. Moreton Island is an extremely common destination for local Australian's as it has excellent camp sites and you are allowed to bring your vehicle to travel around the island (only if it has 4WD of course considering there are no roads, just sand). After all the other people's cars were unloaded we departed the ferry and hopped on our 4WD bus (yes, they exist). The bus ride brought me back to my time in Fiji when I was getting absolutely rocked in that tiny boat. The bus ride was... not smooth. But I could tell the driver was doing his best considering he was driving through sand and rainforest areas. We arrived at the Eco village which was a very nice simple accommodation and of course we immediately went to the beach. We strolled along the beach and enjoyed this island's great size and sandiness. Around six pm we enjoyed what might be the most beautiful sunset I have seen thus far in Australia.

That night, we enjoyed a bonfire on the beach, drank some wine, smoked some hookah, and overall just had a really nice chill night. Ahh, the love for this country was starting to return.

Saturday was greeted with another day of gorgeous weather and beach activities. That afternoon we went snorkeling through the shipwrecks off the shore of the island. We hand fed fish and saw a variety of marine life. I was lucky enough to see two sea turtles! They are extremely shy and faster than you would think. I was challenged to keep my eyes on them but it was still so wonderful. Seeing a turtle in the ocean was the most beautiful wildlife I have seen so far in my life. After another rough and bumpy bus ride back to the village, we enjoyed another sunset and an evening of outdoor beach activities.

On Sunday morning we woke up early and travelled by (bumpy) bus for about an hour only to arrive in the desert. Yep, the desert... here's proof:

Okay, maybe not the "official" desert but close enough. Here in the desert is where we all went sand boarding. You basically rode down one of those giant dunes on a piece of cardboard. It was so hot and we had to walk back up the hill! I would rather just sled... you can at least find comfort in hot chocolate after. We ended the weekend with more beach relaxing before boarding the ferry back home. I went to sleep at 9:30 that night (totally wiped).

Conclusions: I still love Australia. It is a beautiful country with so many things to explore and it was foolish of me to think I would be able to see everything in the first month. I simply just needed to expand where I was looking. And yes, if you are wondering how hard it was for me to resist referencing "Crush" from Finding Nemo the entire time while snorkeling... it was very, very hard. But sea turtles are so totally righteous!