Apr/110
Enjoy Four Wheel Drive Moreton Island Tour: Wild-Life And Adventure In QLD, Australia
Moreton Island is in south-east Queensland, just under 60 kilometres north-east from the state capital Brisbane. Most of the island is National Park territory, and the island is a popular tourist destination. Tourist activities include driving four wheel driving, camping, fishing and whale watching. Visitors to the state of Queensland can take a Moreton Island tour from Brisbane City.
Moreton Island is a large sand island. It is rather long and thin, stretching 38 km from north to south, but just 8km wide at its widest point. It covers an area of 170 square kilometers, and is 58 kilometres north-east of Brisbane, in the Australian state of Queensland.
Although the majority of the island is sand, there is a rock outcrop (Cape Moreton) in the north-eastern corner of the island. There is a convict built lighthouse here. The cape was named by Captain Cook in 1770: at the time he believed it was part of the Australian mainland. In 1799 Matthew Flinders discovered that it was in fact an island.
At 280m and 264m Mount Tempest and the nearby Storm Mountain are the largest coastal sandhills in the world. Only in Iran do coastal sandhills come close to these.
Aboriginal Australians are known to have occupied the island for at least 2000 years. The first European settlement was in 1848. There are only four small habitations on the island, all on the western side (ie nearest to the mainland). The largest is at Tangalooma. At one point this was a whaling station, and up to eleven humpback whales per day were processed here, during their annual migration. Whaling ended in 1962, and the site is now the Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort. There is now a Marine Education and Conservation Centre here, and the area is noted for its wreck diving and dolphin feeding.
With vehicle and foot passenger ferry services to Lytton and Pinkenba near Brisbane, Tangalooma is the main access point to Moreton Island. Only four wheel drive vehicles may be brought to the island: there are no metalled roads. Some tour and taxi services are based in Tangalooma, and also at Bulwer in the north-west. Camping and off-roading is allowed in certain parts of the island. Permits should be obtained before arriving.
Moreton Island Tours are available from a number of operators including Goanna Adventure Tours, Hooked on Moreton Tours and Australia Day Tours. The first of these operators offer 1, 2 and 3 day tours to Moreton Island and Fraser Island. The one day tour departs from Brisbane. If you are already on Moreton Island you can join the tour at Tangalooma Wrecks.
On the Moreton Island tour travellers will see marine life including wild dolphins, dugong, turtles and (possibly) whale, before experiencing a four wheel drive trip through the eucalypt forest, then through the desert to the eastern (Pacific) beach. Activities which are possible during the tour include guided snorkelling in the Tangalooma Wrecks (supervised by professionally qualified guide), sand boarding and tobogganing.
Charlie Lindsay is passionate about writing, he produces ebooks, blog articles, newspaper articles and journal articles.A typical Queenslander, Charlie Lindsay nowadays resides at the AustralianGold Coast where he critiques on the areas hotels, motels as well as alternative accommodations.