Moreton Island!

Aussie word of the day: Mozzies - Mosquitoes (a.k.a. the things that ate me alive this weekend!)

Moreton Island was AMAZING. We got down there Friday night, picked tents/tentmates (mine was Corissa), ate tacos, socialized, star gazed on the beach (holy crap was it an amazing view) and then hit the hay. Saturday we got up bright and early, ate breakfast, and then headed out to some of the world's tallest coastal sand dunes to go SANDBOARDING.I tell you, it was one of the scariest things I have ever done...but so fun! We also checked out middens, which are piles of ritualistically deposited shells left by Aboriginal peoples. Lunch was sandwiches, for which I was provided my very own loaf of gluten-free bread. Our cook/tour guide/driver Sharky made sure that there was lots of stuff for me to eat all weekend, including bread. He rocked, let me tell ya. That day we also examined a population of soldier crabs, which fled at the sight of us, for the most part.

Dinner was an "authentic Aussie bbq" (authentic in that it was prepared by an Aussie), preceeded by watching the sunset, and followed by a campfire and further social time.

Sunday we ate breakfast (everyone else had pancakes, Sharky made me egg-in-a-hole), then went to check out the island's lighthouse. It was built by convicts back in the "Australia-as-a-penal-colony" days.
From there we went to the coast near Honeymoon Bay (which the storm had turned into Honeymoon Cove, as the water was so fierce that it swept away all the sand!), and spent time there eating lunch and hanging out. I waded in the surf and collected shells with Steve. After a while we went from the beach over to the Blue Lagoon, which is actually yellow thanks to tea tree tannons in the water. The swimming was great there, and almost made up for the fact that our plans to snorkel had to get cancelled on account of poor weather. We all slathered mud from the lagoon all over ourselves for its incredible exfoliating properties. We looked ridiculous, but it felt divine. After about an hour we went back to pack up camp and leave. We got home somewhere in the neighborhood of 6:30pm, totally exhausted. I for one got burnt despite using tons of sunscreen. I am not happy about this, I may write a letter. I also intend to mention in said letter, perhaps in a post-script, the 30 or so mosquito bites sustained despite copious use of bug repellent.