Dec 27, 2009

Camping at The Wrecks, Moreton Island.


They said we were crazy, to drive the boat over to Tangalooma from Redcliffe, when we'd never ventured into the bay before and had only just bought the boat, and we still learning its limits.  The road over had its moments, with a bit of choppiness, a max speed pf 10 knots at times, the discovery that in choppy weather the motor had a tendency to want o go either 2 knots and languish on the waves, or 30 knots and leap off the top of the waves, and we kind of varied in a semi-controlled manner between the two, getting slammed by waves, drenched in salt water, beaten by the sun, stressed about survival and lazily wondering about life jacket accessibility.

Then it was over.   We arrived into paradise, drenched and stressed, people were drinking beer on the sand as we scrambled off and kissed the ground like crazed shipwreckers of yore.  No-one cared that we were alive at all.
 

Shipwreck reefs, snorkelling, sand tabogganning, fishing, cooking, camping, watching the stars and the lights of Brisbane, seeing ocean liners cruise liners steaming up the bay, slowing down and getting into the rhythym of the tides, the sun and the weather; we'd entered paradise and there was no looking back to the city, well unless you happened to look that way and you could see the city buildings, Mt Coot-tha and the Glasshouse Mountains all from one spot!

The second day, we decided to head up to the resort to have a look.
While we where there, it began to POUR. Rather than stay at the pub there, we thought we would head back to the camp to keep an eye on the campsite, to make sure it wasnt rained out.

What we saw was total camping disaster. The campsite was GONE. The gazebo had been demolished into a million pieces, the boat was offthe anchor and filling with rain water! Several hours of madly tying tarps to the boat (I'd left the canpy behind) in the rain and bounding waves, then several more hours of fixing the campsite ensued. The next day we had to make a trip up to Bulwer at the north of Moreton Island to get some supplies to resurrect the campsite, or face a rainy few days of no hot meals, constantly pushing rain off the tarp, and just general misery. But we got some extra stuff and we were back in business!
After that, it was clear sailing, apart from another mission to Bulwer for fuel, lugging 50 kg  400m over hot sand with no shoes..... that sucked. But after that, we got back into it, some fishing, snorkelling an dolphin watching at the resort with our new-found friends, Barry and Jill.