119 – Morton Island

Moreton was called ‘Moorgumpin’ by the native Ngugi tribe, which means ‘place of sandhills.’
In 1770, James Cook claimed Australia for Britain and the ‘formal’ European naming of the east coast began. Captain Cook mistook Moreton Island as part of the mainland, so he named the island’s main headland Cape Morton and the water between there and Stradbroke Island ‘Morton Bay’ in honor of the Scottish Earl of Morton.
In 1793, somebody was working on translating Cook’s journal and made a clerical error by adding an ‘e.’ ‘Morton’ became ‘Moreton,’ and no one has bothered to correct the erroneous spelling.
The spelling error was reinforced when in 1799 Flinders returned to Australia, figured out Moreton was an island, and not part of the mainland, but instead of correcting the spelling when he was surveying and correcting the maps, he just figured Cook knew what he was doing and left the ‘e’ alone. Thus ‘Cape Morton’ became ‘Moreton Island.’

The first white non-native people to step foot on the island in Moreton Island’s history, were not Cook, Flinders or any of their crews. They noted the island, mapped it and sailed away.
The first were a trio of ticket-of-leave convicts who were en route to Illawarra from Sydney when their ship was blown off course in a terrible storm.
After 21 days, desperate for water and very ill, they were able to beach their boat on Moreton Island. The Aborigines on the island found the three men and took care of them until they were well enough to be transferred to Stradbroke Island and then onto the mainland, where they ‘discovered’ the Brisbane River when they tried to return to Sydney over land.
If you read the Lone Pine post, you have probably realized by now these 3 convicts were Pamphlett, Parsons and Finnigan. I will not rehash details here.

The 3 convicts shipwreck was not the first, nor would it be the last in the area. As colonization of Australia took hold and more Europeans flooded the area, the space between Moreton Island and Stradbroke Island became known as the South Passage, which carried numerous tales of ruined ships and treacherous waters.
So, the Europeans did what they will do and built a pilot station to guide ships through the area in 1826. A lot of conflicts arose between the Moreton Island Aboriginals and the soldiers which led to the 1833 massacre of the Aboriginal people.
Since nobody was on Moreton Island anymore, the Europeans moved the pilot station over to Moreton and by a843, the town of Bulwer was thriving around it.
Still did not help with all the ship wrecks and even more Europeans were flooding the area increasing the traffic. So they built a lighthouse. Starting in 1857, constructed by convict labor the Cape Moreton Lighthouse was first used in 1958. In 1899, they built the Cowan Cowan lighthouse on the island and all moved along.

During WWI and WWII, Cowan Cowan was used as a defense base to protect Brisbane against invasion, which I guess worked since it never was invaded.

After the wars, and no longer in need of a defensive base, Moreton Island became the location of Queensland’s only whaling station. It was the largest land based whaling station in the southern hemisphere. During the whaling season (June – October) of 124 days, the station killed and processed the yearly quota of 600 whales per year. At the peak, 11 whales per day could be processed on the flensing deck.
Sad. Devastating, but profitable. Nothing was wasted in the process. Except the whales.
One whale could yield more than 8,000 kg of oil used, among other things to make margarine, glycerin, cosmetics and medicines. Meat was used for food and an additive in pet foods. Bones and lower grades of meat were turned into food for livestock or fertilizer.
And this continued for 10 years. 6,277 humpback whales and 1 blue whale were killed, which decimated the whale population, going from an estimated 15,000 to 500.

But, things were on the horizon to help the whales. Vegetable oil for one thing. That made whale oil prices take a serious tumble. But diminishing numbers of whales was the biggest issue. In August 1962, only 68 whales had been caught, and the whaling station closed.

So why retell that awful story? Because today, if you go to the sand dunes, as we did, you will pass the flensing deck. The driver will tell you the story of the whaling station and explain how the deck was used. The deck is now a historical site to remind us of the price of hunting wildlife into extinction.
It is also used for basketball and handball by the staff, so… at least it is a productive space. Moving on.

As I mentioned several what seems hours ago, Moreton Island is a sand island. Today the Tangalooma Island Resort is the main attraction on the island. Tangalooma is an aboriginal word that means the gathering place of the fish, or the meting place of the fish, or so our guide told us.
Among several water activities such as parasailing, all kinds of boat rentals, snorkeling and such, there are a lot of land activities. ATV’s, segways, safaris, helicopter flights, yoga, massages… and the activity we picked, sandboarding.
Most of the island is now a National Park, the rest of the island is the resort and there is one road to service everything. Guess what? A lot of that road is sand.

To get to the area to go sand boarding, you take a ‘bus’ through the bush. Glad we did that because the guide was very knowledgeable about all the deadly snakes along the route he would point out if he saw any. Specifically the Australian Eastern Brown snake (the second most venomous in the world) and the Australian red belly black snake. Don’t play with those.

But we did not encounter any. Just sand. The interesting thing about this sand is apparently it has a high silicone content, so when you walk on it, it is not as hot as normal sand which has been baking in the sun for hours. I have no idea if that is true, about the silicone, but it was not hot to walk on, so I will believe what I was told.

The lack of heat did not negate the climb to get to the top of the hill. That was hard.
The entire time I was thinking a lift, or even a tow rope. Perhaps being dropped off at the top of the hill instead of so far away, but… we were told these dunes are owned and protected by a native tribe, who do not allow vehicles or conveniences as I mentioned to be used to protect the delicate balance of nature.
Good thought, but it did not protect my delicate balance of nature. Good lord I am out of shape.

The basic idea is you lie down on a thin piece of pressboard. The guide at the top of the hill gives it a little wax before explaining essentially you hold the front end up as high as you can. Keep your elbows up, your feet up and essentially superman down the hill. Keep your mouth closed. Keep the front of the board up. If you drop the front of the board, you will fill your face, your shirt, your bra… everything with sand.
Above, Kristin is giving an excellent demonstration of what to do. I made the blooper reel cut, but not the tutorial.

It was fun. Except I had my camera, which I slung to my back and we made it down fine. My focus on keeping that balanced on my back instead of my feet up did cause some bumps which added to my general out of shape condition. I would have happily gone a few more times… if I could have had a ride up the hill.
That was the killer. Going down I could do all day long. Up… one and done.
Still it was fun to watch the others, and I do enjoy taking pictures. So a very memorable event.

Yeah, I was still shaking sand out of my ears 2 days later. But fun.

On the way back to the resort, our guide gave us other facts, like there are no Kangaroos on Moreton. They can swim, which I did not know, and apparently are very good at it, but for some reason they all headed over to Stradburry Island. Probably the current or the whales or something.
There are also no Koala here, even though there are a lot of eucalyptus trees. Don’t know if Koala swim. Somehow I doubt it, but they are very picky eaters.

What they don’t have in marsupials, they make up for with over 190 species of birds. I saw 2.

But I also spent most of the day lounging on the beach or sitting in a cafe scribbling senseless thoughts.

Another interesting fact our guide filled us in on is how many movies have been filmed here. The 2002 version of Scooby Doo was filmed at Tangalooma Resort, so now a lot of people call it ‘Spooky Island.’
Parts of Godzilla and Kong were filmed here as well as a George Cloony and Julia Robers film that was on Netflix. He thought it was called Ticket to Paradise or something like that.
The other popular thing to be filmed, which I did not see first hand and he was not sure if it was still there after the cyclone recently hit, is the Tangalooma Leaning Palm Tree.’ Apparently very popular with the influencer crowd, at high tide one can climb the tree and it leans over the water creating a great Instagram photo.

But take away all of the things I have already touched on, and when someone says ‘Moreton Island’ most think of feeding wild dolphins.

Long before the time of Captain Cook and European invasion, the Ngugi men fished alongside the dolphins. The fishermen would slap their spears on the water’s surface to ‘call’ the nearby wild dolphins. The dolphins would then herd schools of fish toward the men wading near the shores. The men caught the fish in their next and then shared the bounty with the dolphins who helped them.

So, after the quickest sunset I have ever experienced. I am not kidding. It was hanging around for a bit, then it appeared to slide down the first drop of a rollercoaster. Thought I had some time, but nope. Darkness dropped without mercy.

But darkness brings the dolphins and we were going to feed them.
The process is not quite as natural, but there are a group of wild dolphins, I believe they said ‘Inshore bottlenose dolphins,’ who come to the shore every night and are fed by the tourists.
The people at the resort try very hard to keep the dolphins wild, and as such there are a lot of rules about not touching them, certain ways to approach them, how to hand them the fish and such, but the process of wading into the water and giving a dolphin a fish is, I imagine, essentially the same as back in the day.

Absolute bugger to get a picture of the event, but general idea. Wait your turn. Kill time by playing with dead fish. Wander into the water and the handler tells you what to do.
I am not very practiced at feeding dolphins as my fish was not taken, then i tried to offer it again, but I did it wrong apparently and ended up just dropping the fish.
But live and learn. I would also like to point out, I did not wet my pants, my pants got wet. Because I am short and my shorts were long. Just wanted to clarify that.

Anyway, right after the feeding, which as you might note was at night, we caught the last ferry back to the mainland and called it a very long, yet enjoyable day.