‘Clear, calm water and a summer cocktail’: Why Tangalooma is the perfect holiday spot

It’s just a 75-to-90-minute boat trip from Brisbane but it feels like a world away. Here’s why you need to cross the bay.

Up here, at 800 feet, the island stretches out before us, showing off its curves and long, sandy beaches but it’s the blues that really capture the eyes. The indigo of the deep water, the azure at its fringes, the turquoise, the teal, the cyan of the shallows. Each colour is so distinct, so vivid, a stunning visual guide to the meandering shoals and troughs of Moreton Bay on a brilliant day.

You get a sense of it on land, gazing out from the beach at Tangalooma Island Resort on Moreton Island/Mulgumpin, or on the catamaran ride across the bay getting there, but for the full celebration of blue, the sky is the place to be.

Climbing a palm tree at Tangalooma Island Resort at Moreton Island/Mulgumpin.

We’re on a 12-minute scenic helicopter ride taking us toward the tapered southern end of the island, where turtles, stingrays and a dugong are spied hanging out in the shallows.

Then it’s over the windswept Big Sandhills to the surf side where manta rays roam, past the WWII bunkers dug into the sandy cliffs and toward Mt Tempest, the world’s highest coastal sand dune. Back on the resort side, we fly over The Wrecks, the grouping of scuttled ships providing safe anchorage for the yachts that bob at anchor, and then, all too soon, we’re hovering back on to the helipad.

After disembarking, we sit on the fence and look out to the water and beyond, picking out the silhouette of Brisbane’s CBD towers and marvel at the fact that a large sand island of such beauty is so close to a capital city.

It’s just a 75-to-90-minute catamaran trip down the Brisbane River from Pinkenba and across the bay to Tangalooma … and a world away.

The resort offers a range of accommodation but day-trippers are also welcome, getting access to facilities such as two swimming pools, cafes, bars and the playground or, for a fee, activities such as parasailing, tennis and kayaking. Ours is the Sea to Sky day trip, a jam-packed itinerary which, now that the flight is over, is sending us on a stroll along the beachside esplanade for lunch.

Holidaymakers walk past accommodation at Tangalooma Island Resort at Moreton Island/Mulgumpin.

Each Sea to Sky guest gets a $30 lunch voucher to use at the various food outlets and we choose an outdoor table at the Asian-influenced Fire and Stone. Enjoy a pho or salt and pepper calamari while big-eyed, long-legged curlews slink languidly across the lawn, somehow managing to look unfazed yet wary at the same time.

Next stop is our 45-minute quad bike expedition, the “signature activity” we’ve opted for from choices including a desert safari, marine cruise, snorkelling at The Wrecks, or, when in season, a whale-watching cruise.

After a video safety briefing, we’re directed to our rides and drive to the beach where the staff check we know how to brake and manoeuvre the quads before leading us up a hill above the resort into the sandy dunes.

It’s a great way to savour another elevated view but not for long – the tracks are windy and the sand is powdery and soft on a hot day so it’s important to keep your eyes on the path. I’m a little tentative at first but by the time we’ve hit the beach near The Wrecks and turned to head back to base, I’m scaling those dunes like a boss.

One of the thoughtful inclusions in the package is access to the day lounge, an airconditioned oasis with toilets, showers, lockers, plenty of seating and tea and coffee facilities. After working up a sweat in the dunes, it’s time to change into our togs and head to the beach.

Oh, the sheer pleasure of immersing yourself in clear, calm water on a summer’s afternoon. About the only thing that could improve that is a sunset cocktail, which, as luck would have it, is included in the tariff.

Feeding a dolphin at Tangalooma Resort, Moreton Island.

Refreshed after a shower, we’re bound for the bar when we spot a crowd gathering just outside the lounge.

It’s kookaburra feeding time so we join the throng – and the six kookas line up on a resort sign, waiting for their tucker. One is a tad impatient with the expert commentary about the birds’ habits and habitat, popping down off its perch and on to the food container the guide is holding in a not-too-subtle hurry-up. After a stroll as far as the flensing deck, a reminder of the days when Tangalooma was a whaling station, we head to the bar, order two mojitos, find a picnic table and watch the golden orb set over the water.

There’s enough time for a pizza at The Beach Cafe before wandering back towards the wharf for the finale – taking a seat in the stands to watch the wild dolphin feeding.

Back in the 1990s, two mature females, Beauty and Bess, started bringing their calves into Tangalooma and over time, one of the resort’s owners, the late Betty Osborne, decided to offer Beauty a fish. She took it, and today, the same two family groups arrive at dusk for a hand-delivered snack.

It’s a lovely scene: children frolic and cartwheel in the sand as tourists with packages that include feeding the dolphins chat as they line up behind buckets of fish spread a few metres apart along the beach.

We all stare out to sea, waiting, until suddenly, there’s a break in the water. It’s a fin. Murmurs of, “There’s one!” fill the air.

The incredible thing is that the dolphins, six of them tonight, line up, too. They select their lane and wait as two-by-two, the tourists wash their hands, grab a couple of fish and are ushered by staff into the water.

The trick, a guide tells us via a microphone, is to hold the fish upright by the tail, then lower it into the water and wait for that cute bottlenose to slip by and take the fish.

The tourists do get wet up to the waist. They don’t care. They’ve just fed a dolphin. When the last one is fed about 8pm, it’s time to head up the wharf to the boat for our ride home. But there’s one last surprise. A staff member arrives near our boarding area with a few more fish. He tells us that the dolphins know the feeding is over when he throws them one fish each, then pulls up a brick that was lowered into the water at the start of the feeding.

Snorkeling at The Wrecks at Tangalooma Island Resort at Moreton Island/Mulgumpin.

He expertly tosses a fish at the mouths of each waiting dolphin. They gulp it. Then he pulls on a rope and out comes the brick. And like that, the dolphins are off, into the bay.

A few minutes later, so are we.

The writer was a guest of Tangalooma Island Resort