Day 3: Gold Coast - Famous for fun (Tangalooma Resort)

Third day in Gold Coast, 14 October 2012
We were heading to Tangalooma Resort for a night stay. Our coach came to fetch us at around 8 plus and we headed to Holt Street Wharf for our ferry to Tangalooma Resort. It was about an hour plus journey to Holt Street Wharf cause it is located at Brisbane.

It surprised us to see many tourists heading to Tangalooma Resort too. Briefly introduce Tangalooma: Tangalooma Resort is a natural attraction and the unspoiled beauty of Moreton Island, together with the resort’s superior facilities, offers a complete leisure experience. (Information from: www.tangalooma.com)

It took us quite a while for us to settle the procedure before we could get our boarding passes.

As for our luggage, we only brought one hand carry each cause we left our luggages in the hotel. It is not necessary to bring your luggage along cause it is just 2D1N stay. While we were waiting for our turn to board the ferry…

Beautiful sky again! Deeply in love with their cloudless sky! Though it was sunny, it was still cold because of the strong cooling winds! Brrrrr! I hesitated to wear shorts cause we were heading to Island. It will be weird if we wore jeans. But I still wore 2 layers for my top. Hehe!

Girl’s Power! *Wink*

Boyfriend insisted to take this picture of me. It is so embarrassing cause I am facing lots of people actually. Super dumb. Anyway, the weather was really contradicting. It was so sunny that my head almost went “chao ta”. That was why I covered it with my scarf. Lol.

Lastly a group photo before we board the ferry.

Our boarding tickets.

Time to board!

The ferry was not full at all. Plenty of seats. Found a good seat but was surrounded by all the mainlanders! -_________- The tour guide was shouting here and there! Mood spoilt! For the past two days, we did not see any mainlanders at all, thought we could escape…

Boyfriend and I decided to went out to take a look…

The weather was amazingly beautiful. Shivering while taking these pictures. Haha!

It was around 75 minutes of ferry ride to Moreton Island. Just like going to Batam from Singapore. Hehe! Managed to catch some sleep cause we were really tired. Woke up too early. Haha!

Woke up by some noise caused by the mainlanders. Sigh! We were not sure what exactly happened, but they started to take out their cameras and keep looking out of the windows. We then realized we were about to reach Tangalooma Resort. They kept shouting saying that they saw dolphins. One shout, everyone started to shout. =( But we did not get to see it anyway.
Reaching soon!

Totally jaw-dropped when we arrived at the beautiful island. It was really beautiful! It is like maldives-look-alike island. HAHA! We were surrounded by crystal clear waters and white sandy beaches. Beautiful nature! *LOVES*

Look at the scenery behind us! One word “Beautiful”

After alighted, we went to the reception to check in. No idea why, but Tangalooma Island’s procedure to check in were really slow and troublesome. Not sure if it is because we were booked under Travel Agent or what. But they seem to be quite messy. Hmm.
After settled down, we checked in our rooms and had a really rushed brunch! One of our colleagues said that the food in Tangalooma Island are expensive and she suggested us to buy cup noodles instead. So previous night when we were Woolworths-ing, we got ourselves really lots of food (As if we were going for days!). Haha!

Forgotten to take the picture of our room. So decided to grab them from online.

Credit to Tangalooma Resort

Tangalooma Resorts has more than 80 tours and activities. Due to the lack of time, we decided to head for Desert Safari Tour.

The guide was explaining the safety to us. Because the road is going to be bumpy, we actually had to put on the seatbelt. It was about 15 minutes of ride where we arrived the “Desert”. The place is really desert-looked-alike. The sands are so fine! Feel so comfortable with my feet tucked into the sands. HAHA!

Can’t stop taking pictures. Haha! The background is so fake right? Lol.

The guide quickly did some teaching and demonstrating Sand Tobogganing that we will be doing. SO EXCITED

After all the demonstrating, we were given a wooden board and was told to follow the guide and the photographers. And here is the tough part.

See the track from above image? Yes! That was the route that we have to climb up! Perhaps it is not so obvious here but definitely, it really seems like a 2 storey high. Totally feel like dying while climbing up! Hody is the first one to get to the hill. Boyfriend was accompanying me throughout. It was like climbing hills! We were bare-footed by the way. The sand were so fine that if we did not balance ourselves, we might just rolled down and die. HAHA! Yinjie and I were really suffering! My boyfriend was like training and encouraging his men. “HURRY! YOU CAN DO IT! YOU CAN!!!” *ROLL EYES* Hello, I almost died.

For the first round, it was not bad. Hody toppled herself halfway, Yinjie literally “ate” and buried herself in the sands (HAHA!), Boyfriend and I were lucky, we did it quite nicely. The speed is really fast. It can be up to 40km per hour! Wow!

After that, we decided to go for another round cause Yinjie wanted to do it again. What really discourages us was the climbing! Really FOL. My legs can really break while climbing up. But boyfriend was very “zai”, he actually carried the wooden board for me. HAHA! I need not have to carry the board but I am really suffering. P.l.e.a.s.e.k.i.l.l.m.e! Lol.

For the second round, everyone was good! But we managed to catch the tactic to land ourselves far and nicely. No more eating of sands! HAHA! It took us 15 minutes to climb up but less than 1 minute to come down. FOL!

After that, our photo taking again. HEHE!

 

And here is our guide! Thumbs up for him!

Sand Tobogganing is really an exciting sport. A great experience for us. Just that our energy was totally drained off after climbing up the hill. Lol.

Then we went for resort inspections (Only for us) Haha! There are lots of room type. Family Suites Room and etc. Australians are able to come here for a short holiday. *ENVY*

Beautiful beach

After that we went back to our hotel for some rest. And when we woke up, this sceneries welcome us. Boyfriend opened the curtain and asked me over to see this....

Awwww! Feel so romantic with this kind of scenery! Hehe! After that, we headed for Dolphin Feeding! Woot!

While walking along the beach… Perfect scenery! *Deeply in love*

Anyway, it was just 6pm plus. Yup. It was that dark already. Haha!

While waiting for dolphin feeding session…

The highlight of the visit to Tangalooma is definitely the opportunity to hand feed the wild bottlenose dolphins! There are up to 8 of these playful creatures that visit regularty each evening at sunset. (Pretty Smart uh?) The wild dolphin feeding program operates to strict guidelines to ensure that all the dolphins maintain their natural instincts and independence. This means that the dolphins are only fed around 10-20% of their daily food requirements. This is because they want them to hunt food for themselves instead of being reliant. The staff in Tangalooma really take good care of them. In order to let them stay healthy, they make sure that all the fishes are good quality. And one important thing! Wild Dolphin are not meant to be kept!! I really hope that Resort World can free those wild dolphins! =(

Okay. I drifted away. Finally it started. It was so hard to capture a nice picture of them! They moved too fast! We were told not to switch on our flash lights. Be kind to them. =) These were what I have captured. Better than nothing yah?

Don’t you think they are really smart? According to them, they said that these wild dolphins will swim near the shores at around 630pm every day! So smart of them!

I did a recording when the event has started. Actually this video was for my niece and nephew. I have been updating my whereabouts. They knew that actually I were heading for my feeding the dolphin. So I took some pictures and video for them to see what was actually going on. Haha!

Finally it is our turn to feed them. Here is their dinner!

Good Quality fishes for them!

When it comes to feed the dolphins, be prepared to get a little wet! It required us to walk into waist-deep water. The water is freezing! Boyfriend kept laughing at one guy who was shivering. Cause the way he shivered was kind of funny. Those very exaggerating kind. =.= Bad uh?
Okay, here we were. I am kind of nervous actually. I wanted to take picture yet I want to have a closer look. Those images turned out to be kind of blurry. Cause they moved very fast. The member of the Dolphin Care will guide us the steps to feed them.

The one that I fed is called Tinklebell. She is 22 years old. She is so cute! She is so smart, ate the fish on my hand and swan away very fast. Lol. Unfortunately we are NOT allowed to touch them. They are wild dolphins, the teams are afraid that they might catch some bacterial from human beings. Truly understand. I am contented enough. They are so adorable. Awwww!!

This is the picture that the photographer took for us and we bought it! Hehe!

After dolphin feeding, we went back to hotel for our dinner. Before that we managed to take away some fried chicken and french fries to go along with our cup noodles again. Lol. To be honest, even though it was only our third day in Gold Coast, we were so tired and stick of french fries! Yet, the fried chicken comes along with them. *PULL HAIRS*

And there were the photos that we got for sand tobogganing! I think beside food and transport, the next most that we spent were actually photographs. Lol.

Fourth day in Gold Coast, 15 October 2012
Morning from Tangalooma Resort.

Outfit of the day. With my thick jacket of course! Lol. If not I will freezed to death. Lol.

While waiting for our ferry back to Brisbane – Gold Coast.

And for the rest of the day, guess where we went? Stay tuned ^^

Want to know more about how Tangalooma Island come about?
Visit http://www.tangalooma.com/info/dolphin_feeding/history/  for more details!

Click to see the rest of the days.
Day 1: Gold Coast - Famous for Fun (Dreamworld)
Day 2: Gold Coast - Famous for Fun (Movieworld)
Day 3: Gold Coast - Famous for Fun (Tangalooma Resort)
Day 4: Gold Coast - Famous for Fun (Skypoint and HarbourTown)
Day 5: Gold Coast - Famous for Fun (Hotair Balloon)
Day 5: Gold Coast - Famous for Fun (Jetboating and Whale Cruising

With love