2020-02-28 – Moreton Island

We caught a ferry to Moreton Island for a day of fun.  Morton Island is the 3rd largest sand island in Australia and the world.  There are several communities on the island (don’t know how they build on sand but they seem to manage).  We spent the day at the main resort on the island.

The island has 15 shipwrecks along the coast just off the resort.  All were old ships that were deliberately sunk to create a barrier to minimize wave damage along the coast.  They are great snorkeling sites, but we opted to not snorkel today. 

Pied Cormorants resting on a shipwreck

We went parasailing

and took a glass bottom boat cruise that cruised along the island coast. 

Saw a most interesting cloud formation.  Looked like a mushroom.

We stopped for a while near a reef to feed fish (mayhem when the food was tossed into the water.  Most of the fish were butter bream, silver tailed bream, and Sargent Major fish. 

A cormorant came over to see if he could benefit from the feeding.

While wandering around the resort we saw bush-stone curlews.  They were a little like pigeons…wandering around under foot and looking for handouts. 

Later in the day we got to see the laughing kookaburras feeding.  Remember the song about “…laugh kookaburra, laugh kookaburra. Gay your life must be.  Kookaburras are the largest kingfisher in Australia (they have 3 species of kingfisher) and are carnivores.  So during the kookaburra feeding they were given high grade steak (they don’t do well on fatty cuts of meat).

Some masked lapwings showed up hoping for a hand out as well.

At the end of the day we had an absolutely glorious sunset along the beach.

We also got to feed the dolphins.  While they are actually wild they have become use to being fed (the resort has a special permit to allow the feeding).  They come in after dark for the feeding.  They have up to 13 dolphins that show up.  We had seven tonight including 2 babies. 

The feeding is well-controlled (and you have to pay to get to feed them).  We had to sanitize our hands and then we each picked up a small dead fish.  We were escorted to the water by one of the staff so they could assure that we followed all the rules.  There was quite a crowd of people queued up to feed the dolphins.

What an absolutely fun day.