Straddie

From one paradise island to Brisbane and then onto the next, where our friend and host exraordinare Kate was picking us up. Stradbroke Island is a the second biggest sand island in the world, narrowly beaten by Fraser Island just to the north, but it shares all the beauty of its bigger relative. But Straddie has people (but only 3000) and paved roads so its beauty is much more accessible.

We arrived on monday night with a few objectives in mind, I wanted to try out surfing, we both wanted to try out the most amazing seafood in the world and maybe most importantly just relax for a couple of days and catch up with Kate who we've not seen in a long time. After we got to their house and were introduced to Stuart, her father, and his oyster farming friends we headed out for some Kangaroo spotting. The urgency of this mission was brought upon by our failure until that point to see any real wildlife (barrier reef fish and dingoes excluded of course). And Straddie came up with the goods immediately.

Kate's fathers house is in the town of Point lookout, which follows the beaches on the northeast side of the island, so you are never far away from the beach and the beatuful green areas on the slopes that separates them from the residential areas. In these areas a lot of wildlife lives and within 5 minutes, we spotted skippy obvilously just awoken from his afternoon nap. The dolphins, however, were a bit shy this particular evening, so instead we headed home to our hosts for Kates traditional welcome-home Taco dinner, a bit of wine and a good rest in preparation for what looked to be a busy Tuesday.

The plan for Tuesday contained: surfing, seafood hunting, koala safari, dolphin watching on the Gorge walk and roast lamb dinner. Sounds mad?? Well, we are nothing if not ambitious so we started out bright and early by heading down to the beach for some surfing lessons. We stopped by Maine beach where there were really good waves, for professionjals that is - for amatures they are scary and deadly, and rejected that for a more calm site. And when I say surfing I really mean 1 hour, 59 minutes of battling waves and about 30 seconds of attempting to stand up on the board. The morning was not ideal for surfing, with waves coming in very frequently and a bit messy, but that was the hand we were dealt and Kate seemed to manage easily enough. After two hours I had nealy managed to stand up three times and was really enjoying it, but it was tough and almost lunchtime so we had to call it a day and instead went seafood hunting.

Seafood hunting on Straddie is quite easy, you get into your car and drive to where the fisherman lives (they all live in Amity, btw) and buy this mornings catch straight out of their fridges. As fresh as it comes. We picked up some huge raw prawns and Moreton Bay Bugs to complement the few dozens of oysters that Kate and Stuart had brought home the day before. But before we could have lunch, we went koala spotting, since they also live in Amity. The nice lady that sold us the bugs advised us that there were usually three koalas living just across the road, but since it was getting a bit busy in the buildup to christmas (there is now at least 3 cars driving past each day) they had moved further into the forest. So we went a little bit into the forest to try to spot them in their gum-trees, and thanks to Kates keen eye we managed to spot one just as we were giving up. And to top that off, we managed to spot another two on the drive home, and we were only slightly worried by the fact that it was Kate, who was driving, that spotted them. But we got home safely and consumed a gorgeous seafood lunch accompanied by some nice wine - of course.

After brief rest in the early afternoon heat we went out to walk along the Gorge walk which goes along the east coast at point lookout and ends up at maine beach. This boardwalk has stunning views and today lots of turtles, manta-rays, sea-eagles and other birds were out in full force, as well as the surfers catching the last few waves before sunset. On our way home we stopped by the office where Kates brother Hugh is working, were treated to a chilled beer and let our feet rest for a while before heading back to the Roast lamb dinner that was being prepared by Stuart.

Wednesday morning offered a chance to remedy the unsuccessful attempt at surfing form the previous day, but unfortunately the waves were too small instead. So we had to leave the beach again with nothing more than bruised and scraped knees. Instead we headed to the local shops to try to find some Jamaican spices since we'd had a request for Jamaican jerk chicken for dinner that night, and four guests. On this shoppingtrip the Straddie wildlife came through for us again, this time dolpins were putting on a show in the bay. After just catching the very end of the show we managed to pick up most of the ingredients for dinner and made a marinade that was close enough to the real thing.

We left Vaniah behind to cook dinner and headed out so Stuart could get some pictures taken by an old disused oyster farming platform, and at the same time I got a mini tour of their oyster lease. It's quite an interesting place an oyster farm, full of cages to grow oysters in of course, but also full of other imposters such as sea cucumbers, razorclams (which Kate started hunting for since they have a scallop like centre that apparently is delicious) and fish. All in a stunnig setting out in Moreton bay.

The next day we woke up and reluctant to leave, we turned down going surfing one last time and instead just had to try the locally-made gelato one more time and eat lunch at the infamous Fishes. When we finally caught the ferry off the island, we met a local fire prevention guy and learnt all about controlling the bush-fires on Straddie. An impressive and hugely important job!

It's sad to leave Stradbrook island, we've had a great, relaxing time there and it was good to catch up with old friends. Still, with Brisbane and Sydney ahead, we had lots to look forward to...