Taking to the High Seas for a Weekend Away

Not so long ago I wrote an article for Australia and New Zealand magazine about Island Hopping. On Friday, I posted a YouTube video about one such island that I hopped to, namely Fraser Island.

Well, over the weekend I did a little more island hopping. So, from Fraser on Friday, where have I hopped to this time?

I’ll tell you.

On Friday morning I was up with the lark, which was not easy for me, because the night before I was also up with the owls. But by 7 o’clock in the morning, I was in my Jeep and on my way to what can now be termed our annual excursion to Moreton Island.

Well, this is now the second year on the trot that I’ve been, surely that qualifies it for an annual thing, doesn’t it?

Last time we went to Moreton, it looked like this…

Look into the distanceWe were a bit concerned though as to how Moreton Island would look at this time, the weather leading up to our weekend away has not been good and the forecast says we should be expecting rain, thunder and storms.

We shouldn’t have worried though, because what Moreton actually looked like when we got there was this…

Moreton Beach View 1

Moreton Beach View 2Yes, I’m sure you can tell by those snaps of the beach that the weather was actually pretty good. Not quite as hot as last year, but certainly hot enough. My guess is that the hottest day, Saturday, would have been 30°C or more.

We stayed in a different house this time, here’s the view of the back garden…

Back GardenThe kids really enjoyed tobogganing down that one!

Here’s what our front garden looked like…

Front GardenThe house itself was massive; too big to fit in one photo. If I had have back any further to take the picture, I would have fallen over the small cliff that sat between our house and the beach.

Here is the left side of the house …

Moreton House 1And now the right hand side…

Moreton House 2We needed a bigger house because this time we were five families which included eight kids. Here’s a picture of the house next door…

Moreton House Next DoorThat was full of our friends from the Gold Coast, another four families which included 10 kids. The house the other side of that, incidentally, had more of our friends from the Gold Coast, two more families with three more children.

Quite a crowd, all up.

I’m quite enjoying these mini breaks; this is our third in four months. We went to Sydney in November and just last month we went to Hervey Bay. They don’t work out to be too expensive either, here’s the maths for our latest trip:

  • House rent $600 a night, not bad when split between five.
  • Before we went, we did a communal family shopping trip in the supermarket for all our food, that worked out at $105 per family.
  • Then there is the cost of the ferry, for us (two adults, one child) it was $130.
  • Then there was $48 for four days parking at the port; that was pretty irritating because it was free last year.
  • Spending money on the island was pretty minimal for us as we didn’t do anything specific, just bought a few beers in the local tavern. You could spend more if you went on a boat trip or helicopter ride as we did last year, 4x4ing, snorkelling or whatever.
  • Finally, there’s the cost of a few cases of beer and bottles of wine.

And that’s it! So for us, it cost about $850, not bad eh? Who wouldn’t pay that to sit on the balcony three nights on the trot looking at views like this..

Moreton Sky at NightAnd the expected rain, thunder and storms? They started this morning, just as we were leaving. As our ferry pulled away from the island, it all looked rather grim…

Leaving Moreton  1And just got worse and worse…

Leaving Moreton  2We are told that this rain is going to last the whole week, there’s even talk of more flooding. Since arriving home this evening, I’ve heard some parts of the country have already been flooded. So I’d say we’ve been very lucky; paradise islands just aren’t the same when they are wet and grey.

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