For our Christmas holidays this year, we drove down to Toowoomba and had Christmas with Matt's side of the family. After the festivities were done, we headed over to Moreton Island for a week with Grant & Sam & kids, and Nate and Mel. We were camping at Blue Lagoon - in one of the NPWS camp grounds just behind the beach.
The easiest access to the island is via the MI Cat, which leaves from Port of Brisbane. So Monday morning we were up early and on the road. We arrived with heaps of time to spare, and found that the terminal didn't open until an hour before departure time, so we ended up killing some time parked beside the raod near the terminal gates.
The kids didn't mind the chance to get out of the car!
The weather forecast was for a week of storms and rain. We'd been lucky on the drive down, but as we were boarding the ferry, it started to pour down.
They pack the cars in pretty tight on the vehicle deck!
The ride over was perfect - the rain let up jut as we pulled away from the dock, and the water was smooth and trouble free.
An hour and a half later, we were pulling up past the wrecks, and onto the beach.
Once off the boat, we headed north up the beach, and onto Middle Road, which cuts straight across the middle of the island, and is the quickest way between the western and eastern beaches. Moreton is predominately a sand island, with a rocky sandstone outcrop anchoring the top end of the island. As such, it's fairly typical sand-island scrub through the middle - scrubby gum bush, with striking deep cuttings in places along the track.
As you can see from those photos, the track was in pretty good condition, and the going was relatively quick. A combination of being recently graded and the large amounts of rain that the island had received over the last week obviously contributed the the good conditions. Over the course of the week the sand dried out and the track became more and more rutted and corrugated, resulting in progressively slower and slower progress.
Once on the western beach we stopped for a quick drink and to admire the view. Before long though we were travelling north again, to set up camp at the Blue Lagoon campsite.
Despite having a strict booking system for the camp sites, we just managed to find 2 spots that we could use. Grant and Sam had to share a site, and we ended up about 3 sites down from them. As we soon found out though, our position was pretty much perfect - only a short walk from the toilet block, and right at the entrance to the walking track inland to the lagoon! Couldn't have picked it better if we had tried!
(Photo credit - Only half these photos are mine - the other half are Grant & Sam's. So that explains why some of the photos are considerably better than what I am usually able to manage!!!)
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