This island paradise one hour from Brisbane is just like Fiji but without the flights.

As soon as we get off the ferry, I realise we've made a mistake. 

In spite of the holiday rental owner's instructions detailing a "flat, easy 20-metre walk from where the ferry drops you," we are in fact standing on a beach with a dozen four-wheel-drives heading off along the sand. There isn't a flat path in sight. 

The highlighter-blue sea laps calmly at the shore, while 100 metres out, the rusting carcasses of several shipwrecks break the surface of the water like sea monsters coming up for the air.

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Our group — my husband, his cousin and cousin's wife, plus all of our children — doesn't have a car. What we do have, however, is two eskies filled with food, two giant suitcases, several shopping bags, and too many pairs of goggles between us. Checking Google Maps, we realise with sinking clarity that our accommodation is at least two kilometres down the beach. 

After about 20 minutes schlepping our things along the sand, a ranger pulls up in a LandCruiser. 

"Where are you headed?" he asks, looking bewildered at us. 

When we tell him, he laughs. 

"You're not the first ones to book the wrong ferry," he grins, "and you won't be the last. Chuck your stuff on the back — I'll drive it down the beach for ya. Welcome to Moreton Island!"

Just a 75-minute ferry ride from Brisbane, Moreton Island is the third-largest sand island on the planet: a 38-kilometre expanse of golden dunes and pristine freshwater lakes surrounded by wild waves on one side and a sheltered turquoise lagoon on the other.

We're headed towards Tangalooma Resort, which, as we discover, has its own ferry port separate from the main Moreton Island docking point. Privately owned, the villa our gang is staying at is part of a line of blue-and-white timber beachfront houses that stretch north from the resort itself.

"Starfish!" my daughter cries from ahead of us as we continued our walk along the beach to meet our luggage (the ranger only had room for one passenger in his ute), "MUM! A real live STARFISH!"

The beach view from Bek and her family's accommodation. Image: Supplied.

One of what will turn out to be many starfish we encounter during our weekend getaway, the creature is pale blue and bumpy, and perfectly palm-sized. 

"There's another one!" my son yells, and the kids are off again up the beach, stopping from time to time to scream excitedly at the various tropical treasures they find on the sand: a fishtail still attached to a picked-clean spine, driftwood so gnarled it looks like twisted rope, a shell the size of a Cornetto cone. 

The entirety of the island is a national park, so with some difficulty, we convince the kids they're not allowed to take anything from the beach. 

Before we realise it, we're at the steps of our villa.

There are no cars allowed on this portion of the island, which means the kids can play on the grass between the sand and the front deck while we watch from outdoor furniture, something they do until the sun starts to set and the entire sky becomes an orange and pink watercolour painting.

Bek's son enjoying the beach. Image: Supplied.

It's one of the many novelties of our stay — at least as East Coast dwellers — that at Moreton, you can catch a sunset over the ocean. The view is almost a carbon copy of the one we had while holidaying in Fiji a few years ago: palm trees leaning over the water, clear, shallow seas, and a giant amber orb dropping slowly under the horizon.

The perfect sunset view from Bek's accommodation. Image: Supplied.

We feel, as night falls, as though we're a million miles away from anywhere. 

We fill the rest of our weekend with a mix of quintessential holiday activities. We rent kayaks and a sailboat and drift languidly over the swimming-pool still water; we watch a pod of wild dolphins arrive for a dinner of fresh fish from the jetty (which, we're told, has been their habit for years).

Bek and her family rented kayaks and sialboat. Image: Supplied.

As for more novel adventures, a bus on chunky, safari-style wheels lugs a group of us up and into the centre of the island, where giant sand dunes transform the landscape into the Sahara desert. Here, we're handed three-foot lengths of plywood and shoved unceremoniously down the dunes on our stomachs, carving giant sprays of sand as we hurtle to the bottom at breakneck speed. 

Bek's son trying the sand dunes activity. Image: Supplied.

My nine-year-old repeats the process over a dozen times; once is more than enough for me. I'm picking sand out of my teeth until dinnertime. 

The shipwrecks that dot the sea to the south of the island have created a snorkeller's wonderland, with bream, snapper, dugongs, wobbegongs and rays commuting invisible highways back and forth around the wrecks. 

We choose a glass-bottomed boat to witness the ecosystem, and we're treated to a dizzying display when the captain hands out fish feed to throw over the sides.

By our final night on the island, a kind of lazy, holiday vibe has settled over our group. The kids play soccer with their swimmers until it's too dark to see the ball, while we linger over our barbecued dinner, discussing the selection of nineties DVDs that awaits us inside.

By the time we alight the (correct) ferry back in Brisbane, it feels like returning from a foreign country. One we know we can (and will) return to as many times as possible in less time than it takes to get through one of those iconic DVDs we left back at the villa.

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Feature image: Supplied.