Quote from http://www.moreton-island.com/about_moreton.html
"Moreton Island is a unique island wilderness with sparkling clear water and white sandy beaches. It is one of the few untouched areas of natural wilderness along the East Coast of Australia. Moreton Island is situated just 35 kilometres from Brisbane in the Moreton Bay Marine Park. The island is 98% National Park, protecting the flora, fauna, sandy coastline, freshwater lakes, wetlands and forests. Moreton is 38 km long and 19,000 ha in area. It is one of the largest sand islands in the world. Moreton Island provides a fragile north easterly boundary for Moreton Bay. The island supports an amazing variety of vegetation. Its white sandy beaches, clear sparkling water and delightful fresh water lakes make Moreton a popular destination with campers, fishermen, bush walkers and naturalists."
My trip to Moreton Island was over the New Years period 06/07. The 3 day 2 night guided tour, through Moreton Bay Escapes, cost about $300AUD and included food and everything you needed for camping (excl a sleeping bag, but you could rent one for $10 if you needed). As with most backpacking tours my boyfriend (at the time) Phill and I were collected early in the morning on the 30/12/06 from outside Base backpackers in Brisbane. We realised quickly that our tour guide Haydn was going to be a laugh as he was constantly cracking jokes and of course making fun of us for being Kiwi's. He even pretended to have a break down on the side of the motorway on the way to the ferry.
Our group had 2 landrovers between us and we caught the MiCat ferry over to the island which cost an additional $35pp. As we arrived in the bay the magnificent ship wrecks came into view creating a beautiful contrast between the rusty wrecks and the pristine blue waters. At the camping ground we chose our own tent from the rows of pre-pitched green tents. A few of the Asian girls shrieked loudly as they discovered a huge Skink inside their tent, which was pretty funny. He was huge and not too happy at being removed from his warm little haven. The camp ground was simple with the tents all pitched around a central area with large picnic tables for the meals. A whole host of critters were all about the place including a huntsman spider which Haydn picked up and took the 4WD to show some of the Asian girls....they all screamed and crammed up one end of the 4WD and then the huntsman jumped into the 4WD!!! Haydn had to grab it back out before the girls fainted or something...ahhaa. There was also a fairly large centipede crusing around on one of the tents which was pretty fascinating to watch. Laughing Kookaburra's fought over a leftover sausage and provided general amusement with their noises. Phill and I also found a really really tiny skink that was super super cute....and seemed even smaller by comparison to the one found in the Asian girls tent!!
Now I'm writing this well over a year after I did this trip so I can't remember correctly what order we did things.
I think we went for a drive around the island on that first day, up to the lighthouse and for a walk through the bush and down onto one the bays. One part of the island had really crazy red earth in strange formations so we nick-named it Mars. The scenery is absolutely breathtaking no matter where you look. The tour guides made the entire experience really fun as they joked around and were just like a part of the group, as well as being extremely informative about the flora and fauna and wildlife of the island. A couple of times while we were driving around the island to various places we'd spot dolphins in the bay, so they'd stop the 4WD's on the spot and we'd all rush out into the water hoping to get as close as possible. I managed to just nick the fin of one as it went past me. Dolphins are extremely playful and one of them was seriously showing off by swimming really quickly towards me then suddenly turning and whooshing back in the other direction. A couple of the others in the group got really close to a mother dolphin and her baby which was also pretty amasing. While I think of it, always remember to shuffle your feet when in the water at Moreton Island!! This scares the sting rays away before you accidently stand on them. I stood on one before we were told this and it freaked me out and was verrrry squishy...luckily I didnt get stung or anything, it just swam off.
I'm pretty sure that it was New Years Eve that we went sandboarding and snorkelling....but I could be mixing it all up...the boarding might have been New Years Day.....but it doesnt really matter though does it!! The sand dune was quite deceptive from the bottom as you could only see one of the rises. Haydn bet one of the group $300 to run to the top of dune without stopping....and believe me it was a very very safe bet as when you crested the first rise you realised there were two more, the last of which being the stepped and most tiring!! As tiring as the climb up the dune was, it was definately well worth it for the view and for the sandboarding ride down! Phill and I did a tandem board down the first time which was interesting....if I remember correctly he was lying down and I was sitting on him with my legs hooking under his arms...but I might be getting that wrong? It was a while ago!! The second time around we all decided to see who could go in the farthest in one go....and.....I WON!! I was a little scared I wasn't going to stop and end up in the bushes though!! I definitely recommend doing the sandboarding as it is extremely fun, the only downside being that if you dont have any "padding" on your hips you'll get some nice bruises like I did...but still well worth it!!
Snorkelling is an absolute must! Its just really fun swimming in amongst the wrecks and spying all the crazy little fish. At one point I was snorkelling along merrily and happened to look down and just froze on the spot as I realised I was just above a strange looking leopardy printed shark. I found out later that this was called a spotted wobbegong shark, which is a type of carpet shark and that its pretty harmless so long as you don't go provoking it. Nevertheless it kinda freaked me out at first!! I most enjoyed watching all the little first in amongst the weeds and anenomes as they are just so cute and colourful.
For the New Year celebrations there was a huge bonfire on the main beach that pretty much everyone who was staying on the island at the time was going to. Phill had done some fire dancing for our group the night before and they loved it so they'd asked him to do it at the bonfire. Now I know there are idiots all over the world but I seriously just wanted to punch some of the guys down at the bonfire because the whole time my boyfriend was doing the fire twirling they were yelling stupid and smart arsed comments. They really took the cake though at the end of the performance when they decided to let off a flare in our direction!!!!! It whizzed right through the middle of us, luckily not hitting anyone and luckily Phill managed to grab the kerosene and run out of the way before it could explode!! There was almost a brawl right then and there because of this as the british and scottish guys started yelling at the guy who let off the flare and threatening to smack him up. We managed to cool the situation down but decided we didnt want to be around those kind of idiots anymore and so our grouped moved off to down where our campsite was to make our own bonfire. Only problem here was....hmmm...no fire wood. Hey no problem, we'll just steal it from another of the tours campsites!!! We ran up to the camp just before ours and lo and behold there was a 4WD full of wood and with the keys.....so we drove it down to the beach, unloaded the wood we needed and then drove the van back as if nothing had been done. Cheeky cheeky!! We had stopped off at the only store on the island earlier that day to pick up supplies for the evening, and by supplies I mean alcohol, so once the fire was set up we all set about getting merry 
Phill did some more fire dancing and everyone took turns to stand in behind him as he did it. I'm pretty sure he loved the attention of it all We all stayed out on the beach until about 4am when we decided to head back to the camp and sit around the fire there and just talk drunken stupidness really. One of the Asian guys, Kevin, was very very very drunk and just kept telling Phill how awesome he was because of the fire dancing, it was pretty funny.
I think we managed to all get up relatively early the next morning and I know for sure that this was the day that we went to the Blue Lagoon which is a fresh water lake infused with tea tree oils, so it made for a nice relaxing time. We just hung out at the lake a played a couple of silly ball games. Towards the end of the day we packed everything up and caught the MiCat back to the mainland and the guides were kind enough to drop us back at our address as we weren't actually backpackers and were living in Brisbane at the time.
I definitely recommend experiencing a trip to Moreton Island as it is just gorgeous and is not something that can be described wells words - thats why I havent really bothered trying 
Our experience with Moreton Bay Escapes was fantastic as well and I would totally recommend their guided tours to anyone!
