Sorry for the silence, but we've had a full few weeks, island and forest adventures separated by a conference in Canberra on Indigenous studies and health. So, this is the first of three blogs that will straddle these three "environs."
My (Aaron's) sister Rea and brother-in-law Richard came to Brisbane in mid-March, having visited Fiji and Sydney and then driven up from there. So, we took the opportunity of their visit to go over to North Stradbroke (or, in local parlance, North Straddie) Island, a 45 minute drive and hour-long ferry ride. Straddie used to be one island, but became separated when a ship bearing explosives ran aground on a thin isthmus. To avoid the danger of trying to move the explosives, the powers that be just blew it up, which created a small waterway between the southern and northern sections. Wave and tidal action did the rest, and now the two island siblings are permanently apart.
Stradbroke Island, like everywhere in Australia, was originally someone else's land before the English got here. In this case, the people are the Yuggera, also the traditional custodians of where Brisbane is. The Yuggera apparently have quite a sand/silica mining business going on North Stradbroke (mining of one thing or another is also ubiquitous in this country, it seems) as well as overseeing the national park.
Anyway, we rented a funky cabin near one of the towns called Point Lookout. We played in the surf (Kate's somewhere in this photo):
Marveled at the long, curvaceous beaches:
and ate some pretty fine seafood, including Moreton Bay Bugs, sort of a cross between lobster and crayfish. Delicious on the barbie!
We also had some great wildlife sightings, including this Lace Monitor that we spotted in the tree next to our little patio:
I think that was a yawn, he seemed quite bored with our attention (between Richard and me, we probably snapped 40 photos and a video!). A day or so later, we when to take a dip in a sweet water lake that was fed by tea trees, so had a copper hue to the water, and there we say a bevy of these lizards acting like squirrels in the picnic area, scouting for handouts or droppings.
I was out one morning in front of the cabin drinking coffee and checking out the bird life (kookaburras, magpies, noisy friarbirds), when a woman out for a walk asked what I was looking at. She inquired, she said, because the gum tree I stood under was known to have a koala in it now and then. Looking up, I saw no sign of a cuddly bear, but sure enough, a couple of days later, Kate came in from a little walk with a big grin … she had spotted a koala in that tree just a few feet up. We all rushed out, of course, to find this cut fella:
Again, we took a LOT of pics, though he barely moved while we watched him … they sleep about 19 hours a day, so the little movement we saw was an exception to the rule. We (meaning Kate, the one with koala-spotting creed) spotted another one near a restaurant, but it was even lazier and much higher in its tree.
Besides enjoying "island time," we hiked through a recently burned forest to a fine viewpoint on the opposite side of Straddie and did a little snorkeling, seeing quite a variety of fish, though not much coral … our Great Barrier Reef is yet to come!
More to come soon...
My (Aaron's) sister Rea and brother-in-law Richard came to Brisbane in mid-March, having visited Fiji and Sydney and then driven up from there. So, we took the opportunity of their visit to go over to North Stradbroke (or, in local parlance, North Straddie) Island, a 45 minute drive and hour-long ferry ride. Straddie used to be one island, but became separated when a ship bearing explosives ran aground on a thin isthmus. To avoid the danger of trying to move the explosives, the powers that be just blew it up, which created a small waterway between the southern and northern sections. Wave and tidal action did the rest, and now the two island siblings are permanently apart.
Stradbroke Island, like everywhere in Australia, was originally someone else's land before the English got here. In this case, the people are the Yuggera, also the traditional custodians of where Brisbane is. The Yuggera apparently have quite a sand/silica mining business going on North Stradbroke (mining of one thing or another is also ubiquitous in this country, it seems) as well as overseeing the national park.
Anyway, we rented a funky cabin near one of the towns called Point Lookout. We played in the surf (Kate's somewhere in this photo):
Marveled at the long, curvaceous beaches:
and ate some pretty fine seafood, including Moreton Bay Bugs, sort of a cross between lobster and crayfish. Delicious on the barbie!
We also had some great wildlife sightings, including this Lace Monitor that we spotted in the tree next to our little patio:
I think that was a yawn, he seemed quite bored with our attention (between Richard and me, we probably snapped 40 photos and a video!). A day or so later, we when to take a dip in a sweet water lake that was fed by tea trees, so had a copper hue to the water, and there we say a bevy of these lizards acting like squirrels in the picnic area, scouting for handouts or droppings.
I was out one morning in front of the cabin drinking coffee and checking out the bird life (kookaburras, magpies, noisy friarbirds), when a woman out for a walk asked what I was looking at. She inquired, she said, because the gum tree I stood under was known to have a koala in it now and then. Looking up, I saw no sign of a cuddly bear, but sure enough, a couple of days later, Kate came in from a little walk with a big grin … she had spotted a koala in that tree just a few feet up. We all rushed out, of course, to find this cut fella:
Again, we took a LOT of pics, though he barely moved while we watched him … they sleep about 19 hours a day, so the little movement we saw was an exception to the rule. We (meaning Kate, the one with koala-spotting creed) spotted another one near a restaurant, but it was even lazier and much higher in its tree.
Besides enjoying "island time," we hiked through a recently burned forest to a fine viewpoint on the opposite side of Straddie and did a little snorkeling, seeing quite a variety of fish, though not much coral … our Great Barrier Reef is yet to come!
More to come soon...
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