Our second day on Moreton Island was a sleep in day, Ya-hoo!!
After packing up all all of our stuff and dropping it down by the beach, where we'll be meeting up with the ferry, it was off to another hike... this one to the highest point on Moreton Island: Mount Tempest.
It's hard to believe this entire island is composed of sand while looking at it from a distance. Sand is found on beaches - but this Island also has mountains and valleys; how can they all be composed of sand as well.
Well take a drive through the island and it's quickly confirmed for you that it is most definitely composed of sand. Several of the roads we travelled to get to the base of Mount Tempest were dug deep through sand hills; which rose far above the roof of our vehicles. On either side of these passages, you could see the depths of sand and deep, deep roots from the vegetation above. An amazing thing to see.
We also came across one or two "traffic jams". Since many of the roads are single lane, dual direction; these are not too uncommon; although in our two days here, we've only come across two jams. To help drivers along, every so often you'd see spots where passing shoulders were placed; designed to allow one vehicle to pull over, allowing on coming vehicles to pass.
Well, the trek up Mount Tempest confirmed for us as well that this is a sand Island. The entire path up the mountain was sand based... With several staircases in place to help keep the sand in place. It was a relatively steep hike, and even though we started it reasonably early, the sun still had plenty of time to heat the sand below our feet and was presenlty searing us from above as well. It was certainly a hot hike.
Once at the top of Mount Tempest, we had quite the view scape of the island. On one side was a view out towards the ocean with several large sand dunes leading the way to the closest beach. In the other direction, looking inland, you could see forests of tropical plants, other smaller "mountains" and valleys. And in a third direction, not too far in the distance, you could see "the desert"; an area of white sand void of plant life but harbouring a giant sand dune. This would be our next destination for some lessons in sand boarding!
Because of the lack of reference points within the desert, determining it's true size was not easy - nor was it something I even considered until one of those large 4WD tour buses drove across it to transport a group of school children to the far side of the giant dune. The tour bus went from the size of "tour bus" to dinky by the time it reached the other side. This inland desert was quite large.
With school children on one side of the dune, and a group of tourists using another, we were off to claim our "track". Now the first thing we learned was that sand boarding is nothing like snowboarding! First, you don't buckle yourself into a board, instead you lie flat as you can on one, except for your upper torso, which you arch up (along with the board) so as to form a smooth rounded surface area. Next, you don't try to steer or slallom down the hill, but rather you try to keep as rigid as possible; any deviation to these tips could result in pits in the track, or worse, a wipe out which would just ruin the track altogether. And the biggest rule in sandboarding: "Don't walk on the track!!!". Doing so puts all kinds of pits in it and slows it down.
Unfortunately, no one has yet had the insight to install a "lift" of any sort... So, we had to climb to the top of the dune, repeatedly. Now, just be clear - sand boading is loads of fun, climbing to the top of a giant sand dune, not so much... But the second is a requirement of the first - so, no more complaining.
I was pretty surprised at the speeds you could pick up sand boarding. We also engaged in a little game of "who could go the farthest". Knowing that momentum was determined in part by mass - I thought I'd be a safe bet for this one; but such was not the case. In each run I came close to the record, but never surpassed it. Kudos to Jessica for holding both the record of shortest and longest runs (however, results are not final until the blood doping tests are completed... So we'll have to see if she retains the title! :-) )
With lessons over, we headed down to the beach for a liesurely walk back to the ferry "terminal" to await our departure.
For the record, driving in Matt's 4WD was an experience! A good one. Except for one little issue when we first arrived on the Island (I would have helped push, but I was preoccupied getting some cool pics of a pelican - sorry Matt. :-) ), he had no problems at all negotiating that thing around the sand roads -be they hard or soft!
With vehicles loaded, again a very cool thing to witness, and engines roaring; the catamaran slowly unbeached itself with no evidence of extreme effort, except for the deep vibrations of the engines under stress. Once unbeached, it simply pulled a 180 and headed off to the mainland.
As I got settled on the ferry, I realized I was quite pooped and decided to lie down - unbeknownst to me, in doing so I lost the "contest" of who would last the longest before passing out. I would have won the one for who would have passed out first... But no one thought to call that one. :-(
When the ferry landed it was right back on the road for us. Our destination tonight would be Byron Bay; a 220 km ride and our latest arrival yet (somewhere in the proximity of 9:00pm, including time for grocery shopping).
Supper tonight is being prepared by Martin and Peter. On the menu: savoury and sweet pancakes. The savoury ones were made up of bacon, onions and such; the sweet ones were made up of banana slices, strawberries and such.
Hmmm, a savoury one for supper followed by a sweet one for desert... Awesome!!
(And here I thought I'd be losing a bit of weight on this adventure... Not!)
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