Tangalooma is the Brisbane beach resort only the locals know about | Canada Voices

A playful dolphin pushes toward my legs through the warm, clear waters of Moreton Bay, where I stand thigh-deep, arm extended to offer him a small herring.

Echo is a 33-year-old bottlenose, sleek and blue grey, and he seems to smile as he comes closer.

My heart is in my throat as he gently grabs the fish from my hand. “Thank you, Echo! What a good boy!” I tell him. Overwhelmed, I turn to my brother and choke out, “I think I’m gonna cry.”

Hiking in Australia’s Blue Mountains brought me back to my childhood

Echo is one of the oldest in the pod that visits Tangalooma Island Resort most nights for a snack as part of the wild dolphin feeding program. The program has strict guidelines to protect the animals, including feeding each dolphin only 10 to 20 per cent of their daily food requirement so they maintain their natural hunting instincts and independence.

It operates each night around sunset to the delight of resort guests and day trippers like my brother and me. Located on Moreton Island, the resort is just a 75-minute ferry ride from Brisbane, on Australia’s east coast. Despite Tangalooma’s proximity to the city of 2.7-million people, it’s a special tropical oasis of golden sands, exquisite snorkelling and activities galore.

Tangalooma is something of a hidden gem for visitors.

Roughly 70 per cent of the 162,000 people who visit the resort each year are Aussies. Mention Tangalooma to anyone who grew up in Brisbane, and they’ll likely reply with some variation of “I haven’t been there in years!” or “I remember a school camp there.”

My Grade 7 trip was on Moreton Island, one of the largest sand islands in the world. We weren’t the kind of school that did resort stays. Instead we camped in huge tents and ate outdoors.

What I remember from that five-day stay is swimming in the Blue Lagoon (a natural freshwater lake), playing tunnel ball on the beach alongside the wild waves and visiting the Cape Moreton lighthouse that guards the northern point of the island. All of this is still possible because the fun at Moreton Island hasn’t changed a whole lot since I was 12. And on this trip, I wanted to relive the thrill of sand tobogganing.

Since moving to Canada from Brisbane, I have come to love throwing myself down a snowy hill on a toboggan. But let me tell you it is absolutely nothing like sand sledding up to 40 kilometres an hour down one of the world’s tallest coastal dunes on a flimsy rectangle of waxed Masonite, not quite sure if you’ll make it to the bottom alive.

The first step is trudging up the steep dune in the beating sun, thankful for my hat and trying to keep my flip-flops on my feet as a defence against the hot sand. Our guide, who drove our group here along the unruly sand road from the resort, talks us through it. “Lie on your stomach, hands there, bend the board up to avoid the worst of the sand in your face, legs up … and offfff you go,” he says as he pushes me down the incline.

I scream with a mixture of delight and fear, cackling as I come to a halt at the feet of my brother, who has filmed the whole thing for posterity. Because we are a pair of suckers high on adrenalin, we climb the imposing dune to do it all again.

Later, back at the resort, we gear up in wetsuits for a guided snorkel tour of the Tangalooma wrecks – a cluster of ships scuttled by the Queensland government between 1963 and 1984 to provide safe anchorage for recreational boat owners on the eastern side of Moreton Bay.

It’s a beautiful spot to snorkel, with coral in and around the wrecks and more than 100 species of fish flitting about.

If you’re up for more beach fun around Brisbane, two of the other largest sand islands are close by – North Stradbroke and Bribie – and both make for easy day trips or weekend getaways.

It’s a curious thing, but these islands with their charming beaches seem virtually unknown outside Southeast Queensland. They’re almost a secret for those wanting to avoid the crowds of the Gold Coast or, north of the city, the Sunshine Coast.

Bribie has a range of beaches to choose from, though it’s generally quite calm compared with crashing waves typical of shorelines around here. North Stradbroke (affectionately known as “Straddie”) is great if you surf, but plenty of its stunning white-sand beaches offer calmer azure water for swimmers, too. Both can be reached by public transit, though be warned the train-ferry-bus combination for Straddie eats up a few hours.

If you go

Moreton Island is a 75-minute ferry ride from Brisbane, with four boat services operating daily in each direction. A return ticket is $94 for adults and $50 for kids.

Tangalooma Island Resort has plenty of day trip activities, everything from snorkelling coral-jammed shipwrecks to helicopter rides, sand tobogganing, tours of the island and whale-watching cruises. Visitors can choose from eight different accommodations that range from three-person budget rooms for AUD$209/night to eight-bed beachfront villas for AUD$469/night to full holiday homes that sleep 12 for AUD$800/night. See tangalooma.com for details.

The writer was a guest of the Tangalooma Island Resort. It did not approve or review the story before publication.