Moreton Island

Before I left Brisbane I took a trip to Moreton Island on a 4wd tour to do some sandboarding and boogie boarding. Moreton is the third largest sand island in the world. If you hadn't guessed already a sand island is one that is made entirely out of sand, although the classification system actually allows them to have the odd rock or two as they don't interfere with the predominant sandy flavour of the environment. Neighbouring Fraser Island and Straddie take the prizes for biggest and second biggest respectively, but both are more heavily populated and Straddie cheats slightly and has some tarmac roads. Moreton is far more isolated than the others and less populated - there's probably less than 200 people on it at any one time, and there's at least 100km of beaches for those people to disappear into.

One of the bays on Moreton


Ships wrecked off the beach to create a safe swimming area.


To get there a 4wd is essential as like on all good sand islands the roads are entirely made out of sand. This makes for some comedy moments when "city folk" buy new jeeps and try and test out their off road capabilities. The daily ferry deposits you on the main beach and you're straight into the soft powdery stuff up to your axles if you don't know what you're doing. According to Matt, who has first hand experience, the locals then spend a good 30 minutes giving you helpful advice while the other ferry users queue behind you in the intense heat. I too have experience of getting car's stuck on beaches - having been an innocent passenger when a couple of friends recklessly endangered a Renault 19 on a beach in Cornwall, but that's another story.

Fortunately we had an experienced driver who took us out to the Moreton desert without incident and we stopped off on the dunes to do some sandboarding. I have to say that I had envisioned myself gliding gracefully down the slopes on a sleek surfboard-style contraption. I wasn't expecting a sandboard to be a lump of rectanglar plywood like you might find in any hardware store, but that's exactly what they are. They also make great shelves if you find you don't have a taste for the sport, so investing in one isn't such a bad move.

sandboarding in the desert

The dunes you go down are angled at 45 degrees and go on for about 100 metres. You lie down on the board face first and lift up the front of the board with your arms so you dont turn your mouth into a sand-shovel. Then someone pushes you and you fly off at 30 miles and hour (my guestimate - I'd left my radar gun in my other shorts) until the dune levels out and you have to make the long climb back up to the top again. You carry on like this until everyone is dehydrated, abraded and dessicated, then you get back in the van and go have a swim somewhere much cooler. And you'll never get a pebbly beach on a sand island, so you're guaranteed some soft stuff to lay your towel on.... which was nice....