Lamington National Park/Moreton Island
Trip Start
Feb 20, 2006
1
23
55
Trip End
Ongoing
Brisbane,
Australia
Friday, March 24, 2006
As we continued our drive towards Lamington National Park we passed by farms and vineyards. Along the way, there were some cows on the side of the road but they didn't seem to mind the car and took their time crossing. After taking a few wrong turns, we finally arrived at the Park which is a feature in itself, full of twists and turns with numerous stopping points. It took about an hour to reach the top but we stopped a few times. The views were spectacular and we even saw some wallabies. Once we reached the top we couldn't much because it was so cloudy and it was too late to take one of the walks
Car 1
. We got back to our hostel around 9:30 pm and called it a night.The next day we took a ferry to Tangalooma, Moreton Island. It's about 35 kms from central Brisbane and took about an hour and 30 minutes to get there. Its home to some deliberately sunken wrecks but it was too windy to snorkel near them so we stayed close to the peer instead. The snorkeling wasn't too bad, we saw hundreds of fish but the wind made it a bit chilly so we didn't stay long. We spent the day reading our books and in the evening we walked the beach enjoying the sunset.
The highlight of our trip was feeding the bottlenose dolphins. Every night around 6:30 pm the dolphins come to the waters underneath the jetty to feed on the bait fish which are attracted by the jetty light. People from the dolphin care program explained to us that back in the early 90's one of the dolphins began to take fish thrown to her from the jetty and since then, other dolphins have joined. All 10 dolphins were there last night, including two calves.
After getting directions, people headed towards the beach and stood in line. There were 5 rows of people (two dolphins per row) and it was important that everyone was synchronized like that the dolphins would be fed at the same time. Tim and I were almost the last to go because we were watching the dolphins from the jetty. We figured why wait in line for 10 minutes and see nothing when we can see everything from the jetty. Before picking up the fish, we had to wash our hands and wait for the dolphin keeper and tell us to come in. As we made our way into the water, the dolphin keeper was in the middle of us holding onto our arms talking about the dolphins. We brought the fish down to the water and I was surprised how gently they took the fish. It was so tempting to touch them but we weren't aloud. However, being the last ones in the water, the keeper had to get rid of the remaining fish so we got to stay longer to feed them. Boy, did our hands smell fishy! We then made our way to the ferry and an hour later we were back in Brisbane. A girl from the boat organized everyone's taxies so once we arrived, they were waiting for us. By the time we got back, our heads hit the pillows and it was goodnight for both of us.
