North Stradbroke Island

A Mangrove island in Moreton Bay. North Stradbroke Island in the background.


Pandanus. Cliff face, North Stradbroke Island.


Male pandanus in flower. North Stradbroke Island.


Pandanus & Casuarina. North Stradbroke Island.

Used the satnav to get myself to the North Stradbroke Island ferry terminal, yesterday.

My first taste of ocean water since coming up to Queensland. Swam regardless of the beach being closed, but with great care. I don't believe that there was no safe place to swim on Main Beach. In the end we swam in where it was probably far more dangerous. In a little narrow gorge with a very strong sideways and outwards pull. So I simply lay down in water about a foot deep and let the lovely incoming waves break over me.

Mainly took photos of the beach casuarinas and the pandanus. And saw for the first time that pandanus are dioecious. I find it really hard to find good botanical reference material on the web. So I haven't managed to track down the pandanus species despite it being found on every Queensland beach..

The mangrove island photograph was taken from the ferry jetty at Cleveland, with North Stradbroke Island in the background. Part of what makes Moreton Bay a water-bird refuge. It is truly an amazing bay. (Huge, and that is what makes finding a decent beach close to Brisbane virtually impossible.)

GPS

Pandanus on the foreshore of Redcliff Beach.


Casuarina. Redcliff Beach.


Mangrove at Nudgee Beach

The beaches on Moreton Bay (and all those that I have seen so far) are so different from what I know as a beach. I think it would take another lifetime to acclimatise me to them.

Pandanus and this incredibly dessicated looking casuarina are to be found on every beach I have so far seen. Shallow beaches, dirty water and warm. But there are all those islands off the coast, so the water is shallow and fed from all the muddy mangrove creeks and rivers...everywhere. Also incredibly salty.

I have brought up the car from Sydney using the old Satnav. But I clearly needed newer maps and so had to buy a new one (no maps available on the old one). So I was determined to venture forth and try the roads and the navigation.

I set out for Redcliff, having seen photos from a Flickr friend, but diverted to various places on the way. So I thought that Nudgee might serve for a swim. Clearly not. Great for fishing. And so I continued on.

The Norfolk pines of Redcliff looked somewhat the worse from the long drought, but it was a swimmable beach and so I swam.

The new satnav is not as satisfactory as the old: it does not automatically tell me to continue straight when I reach an intersection with millions of directions. You need to keep a sharp eye on the number of metres left before the turn or you will turn too early. Also the maps are crappy. We now have voiced streets, but this is not always helpful: Sir Fred Schonell drive becomes "serve ridge..." and Brisbane is pronounced with the last syllable rhyming with rain. Anyway it took me there and brought me home safely so I should not be complaining.

More chirpy

Pandanus. Gorge Walk, North Stradbroke Island.


Casuarinas. Gorge Walk, North Stradbroke Island.


Pathway. Gorge Walk, North Stradbroke Island.


Pathway. Gorge Walk, North Stradbroke Island.

On Sunday, I took myself off to Cleveland to get to Stradbroke Island. The train journey was long & tedious (nearly an hour, with the train stopping all stations), and by the time I found myself at the busstop, I was starting to wonder why I had come. But there was a sign at the busstop which gave a telephone number and advertised a free bus service to the Stradbroke flyer.

Well, the next departure for Stradbroke Island was in roughly an hour, but the bus came by and picked me up and it was a pleasant wait at the down-at-heel ferry service. It had already that island air where people busy themselves with island things and tourists are necessary nuisances. No information needs to be given: the locals know and the tourists will find out as the island time and processes take them in hand. (I'll go again, but probably not by train.)

At College

Early morning view across one of the lakes at the University of Queensland


Giant pandanus along the path by the lakes

Finally, the move has been made. I am now in Brisbane.

The colleges are on the western perimeter of the lakes, which are just a part of a more extensive parkland which surrounds the south-west of the university as it bords the river. In the morning I walk amongst immense tropical trees to the ferry, with birds foraging: ibis, geese, moorhens, coots, corellas, a brush turkey and a willy-wagtail. In the evening they are settling down, with much noise, to roost. And as I take my swim in the pool under the darkening sky, the sound of screaming birds from the trees above the pool is remarkably soothing, and not unlike the evening shrill of cicadas on a Sydney summer evening.

So, however stressed I am by making this move, I have a wonderfully calming start and finish to each day. All I have to do is hang in.