STRADDIE 5-A SURPRISING SLICE OF HISTORY

THIS DOWN UNDER LAND OF OZ

When my Reluctant Traveller and I first settled on Straddie we knew little about its history.  To both of us, as it must seem to countless other first time visitors, Stradbroke Island was simply an intriguing location on a map, a holiday destination, a playground full of golden beaches and sparkling water. 

That the island had a long and proud indigenous history was something I took a few years to realise. That my husband had a unique connection to the island’s past we both remained blissfully unaware of for a good 20 years.

Point Lookout

Australia’s timeframe, like countless other countries can be measured in two ways;  it can be taken back a few short centuries to European occupation or discovery, or it can reach much further back to the known existence of its original inhabitants.  The same goes for Straddie.

The island was first documented in 1770 by Lieutenant James Cook on his extraordinary voyage of discovery when the vessel under his command, HM Barque ‘Endeavour’, sailed along the eastern coast of what was to become known as Australia.  Mind you Cook was not the first stranger to sight this land down under, it is estimated at least 54 ships from sea going realms of the time made various connections to the land and its people in the years between 1606 and 1770.

 

But at that time Cook and the explorer Matthew Flinders after him weren’t aware the island had been occupied for over 21,000 years by local groups or tribes and the land they would eventually name Stradbroke Island had been known to many indigenous inhabitants for countless centuries as Minjerribah.

Britain’s exploration and colonisation of Australia would lead to a massive influx of immigrants from Europe.  These newcomers brought new languages, customs and skills to their new home along with the then European misconceptions of class, colour and intelligence.

The Europeans also brought plague and illness.  As more and more overcrowded migrant ships arrived in Moreton Bay it was decided to establish a quarantine station at a small settlement on an island isolated from but within sight of the mainland.

Dunwich in early years

Image held in Queensland’s Oxley Library

With the passing years the island began to assume the western names of its new occupants.  The small settlement locals had called Pulan became Amity Point named after Surveyor General Oxley’s ship, while  as Cook charted the eastern seaboard he named Point Lookout as a warning to other sailors to beware of rocky outlets

Then in 1827 Captain Henry Rous who also happened to be the Viscount Dunwich sailed his warship, HMS Rainbow into the bay and thus were named the two navigation channels, the Rainbow  and the Rous.  Both these deep water parts of Moreton Bay are now favoured fishing spots. I’ve fished them on numerous occasions, sometimes successfully.

Oops, I nearly forgot to mention, the Viscount’s father was England’s venerable Earl of Stradbroke.  It figures doesn’t it that by such foibles of self importance and pomposity the island and its towns were named.

DUNWICH NOW

DUNWICH THEN

Image held in Queensland’s Oxley Library

By 1864 the quarantine station had been moved to Peel Island, a tad closer to the mainland and the buildings left behind on Straddie became the Benevolent Asylum.  A lot of modern day readers may take up their cudgels about the use of the word ‘asylum’ confusing it with the term lunacy.  In the 1800’s the word asylum meant exactly that, refuge. The Dunwich Benevolent Asylum became Queensland’s first sheltered home for the elderly, the infirm and the incapacitated.

In those first years of western settlement  Europeans set up farms, introduced oyster farming, logging and fishing,  the dugong was hunted for its oil used in lighting and medicine.  Small schools were established  to educate the children, jetty’s were built and small ships from the mainland made frequent visits.  The Island prospered.

Image held in Queensland’s Oxley Library

As the island’s population grew so too did its small and beautifully positioned cemetery at Dunwich.  Set on a slight rise among tall bunya and native gum trees the cemetery is the last resting place for an estimated 8,426 former inmates of the Benevolent Asylum.  The cemetery registry lists only 800 or 900 official plots and many of the burial sites, including those from quarantine days when whole shiploads of typhus sufferers died are listed as unknown. 

INMATES ANSWERING THE MEAL BELL

Image held in Queensland’s Oxley Library

Australians are in the unique position of knowing that all their early western or European forebears had no way to reach Oz other than by ship.  And most of their voyages whether voluntary or as convicts can be easily researched. 

Over the years I became obsessed with family history, tackling my grandparents origins first and then my husbands, the Reluctant Traveller.  His family background included Danes and Germans, farming stock from Wiltshire, mill workers from Yorkshire, a Welsh labourer, Thomas Williams from a small town near Cardiff and a young girl called Jane Wall who was born in Somerset.

Delving into family history is a painstaking challenge that at times seems endless though computers have made it a whole lot easier.  Without too much fuss I found the marriage of my husbands great-great grand parents in Wales and then their voyage to Australia on the Parsee in 1853. 

Extract from Moreton Bay Courier 15th January 1853:

The Parsee has made an excellent voyage of 102 days from Plymouth to Moreton Bay, leaving England more than a month after the America and coming to anchor in the Bay a little before her. The Parsee crossed the equator on the 2nd November and came round Van Diemen's Land on the 22nd ult., being the 84th day from England; but was detained on this coast by northerly winds. Sighted land at Sugar Loaf Point on the 1st instant. She brings 493 immigrants, of whom 105 couples are married, 18 males and 106 female adults are single, 144 are boys and girls between one and fourteen and 15 are infants under one year...

I was suitably pleased and amazed because their entry into Moreton Bay would have been right here in Dunwich where all new ships were quarantined. Their first sight of the new country was virtually the same view we wake up to each morning.  But this isn’t the end of Jane’s story nor is it the surprising link I mentioned earlier...

Thomas and Jane Williams settled in the Nanango area of rural Queensland and had three daughters, two of the three married brothers from Wiltshire.  One of their daughters later married Marius Sorensen from Denmark, and in time one of their daughters married a grandson of the immigrants from Yorkshire.

But Jane Williams who could read but not write was a determined lady, she became a respected midwife in Nanango and carved out a life for herself when her husband died and their youngest child was only 14.  Then much later, aged, blind and in poor health she committed herself to the Dunwich Benevolent Home, died in 1909 and was buried in an unmarked grave.

Womens Quarters Benevolent Society Dunwich

Image held in Queensland’s Oxley Library

Historical Cemetery, Dunwich

 

The cemetery in Dunwich is the focal point of the township. Overlooking the One Mile jetty it shares the foreshore with neighbouring camping grounds and The Little Ship Club marina. Vehicles pass the cemetery on their way across the island to Point Lookout and Amity Point. The primary school is just across the main road.  

Tall and thickly leaved shade trees are home to myriad birds and a family of koalas.  If there are ghosts patrolling this last resting spot their days are never lonely with locals and visitors alike frequently strolling through the cemetery grounds.

Grave stones tell the stories of pioneer families, of immigrants from distant countries whose voyage ended suddenly and tragically from typhoid or worse at the Quarantine station.   They also tell the story of doctors and carers struck down with those same incurable afflictions.

And on a memorial wall there are names of just some of the 8,000 or so inmates of the Benevolent Institution who were buried in the cemeteries unmarked graves.

We found Jane William’s memorial plaque on that wall.  Her actual grave like so many others was unmarked and now is unrecognizable beneath the mowed grass.

Distant unknown relations from another part of Queensland had found her last resting place long before us and instigated the memorial plaque.  I wonder do they know Jane now has kin living close by, keeping her company with frequent visits and kind thoughts.

Jane's death was announced in a February 1909 edition of the Queenslander.  I thought it sad to see the four inmates of the Dunwich Home who died in that same week were all immigrants from far away countries.

For nearly twenty years Stan had lived in Dunwich, walked through this beautiful and peaceful cemetery on numerous occasions and never at any time suspected his link to the island was so precious.  Perhaps our move here all that time ago was meant to be.

A great-great grandson honours the past

The Benevolent Society’s memorial wall where Jane Williams name is inscribed.

oOo

Robyn Mortimer ©2010

Next Part 7 Straddie-  From Beach to Bush – a 65 year friendship.

STRADDIE 4–FLOOD, DROUGHT, BUSHFIRE - 2011

THIS DOWN UNDER LAND OF OZ

Australia knows only too well the cruel vagaries of mother nature.  The years of severe drought, rivers turning to dust, fodder trucked into properties no longer able to support livestock only to be followed by the paradox of widespread flooding, damage to roads and property, and again loss of crops and livelihood.

In fact the country is experiencing right now the absurdity of severe floods after years of frightening drought.  We don’t have a flood problem on Straddie where the sand quickly absorbs the rain and excess water sinks deep into the water table or flows out to sea. 

But as current news stories report the flooded farms and towns of Northern New South Wales, not all that far from where we live, I’m reminded of an amazing survival story that happened a few years ago.

It is the unbelievable story of Barney the Brahmin Bull and his miraculous 87km journey through raging flooded creeks and river to the Pacific Ocean.  The news story says it all.

Jen and Chris in Ecuador know the Border ranges area well, they lived there for many years and can appreciate the narrow twisting waterways of high country landscape where this story took place.

Barney’s unbelievable journey began when the 12 month old bull calf was washed away by a wall of water from its pasture on the banks of Hopping Dick Creek at around 2am one Sunday morning. Its owner considered the bull lost before being told seven hours later it had been found alive and well near the Tweed River’s entrance to the sea roughly 90km downstream.

The exhausted animal was sighted floating toward the  ocean by a passerby who alerted park rangers.  In that seven hours Barney had been catapulted through raging flood waters as the creek fed into the larger Tweed River. On its mad journey to the Pacific Ocean the calf had to avoid barbed wire and branches, tree trunks and rocks and all the other flotsam and jetsam swirling about in the water.

As Barney’s bemused owner told the reporter, ‘when we got him back to the property the bull calf rushed up to his mates in the paddock and you could almost hear him saying “Mate you have no idea what I’ve just been through.” ’

Floods are a calamity we on Straddie don’t experience but like the rest of Australia our island is prone to bushfire. Year after year headlines in newspapers throughout the country report the death and destruction caused by these out of control infernos. As a city girl I had never known its actual horror, never seen the billowing clouds of smoke darkening the sky, never heard the crackling onslaught as flames roared ever closer.

 Then suddenly one April day in 2006 the headlines were for us.

Major bushfire raging on North Stradbroke Island

    Campers evacuated as Stradbroke fire rages

          Bushfires hit Stradbroke

Someone, perhaps a lazy camper failing to properly douse his camp fire, or a negligent driver flicking a cigarette butt out the window of his vehicle had sparked the initial blaze.  Whoever or however it started, by that casual action someone set in motion a fire that stretched out onto several fronts, crossing the island from ocean to bay with frightening speed.  

With so much uninhabited land in its path this fire proved contrary, twisting and turning with the prevailing winds to attack in different directions. We no sooner thought we were no longer in the fires path then it again changed direction and fire fighters and equipment rushed to establish breaks, to attempt to turn the blaze back on itself. The fire would take several days to finally quell and would push our local rural fire brigades to their absolute limit.

Little Ship Club  Dunwich - photo by Roger

 

Our house is to the extreme left of the houses on the hill seen here from the One Mile.  

 

Behind our home is a deep bush gully, and behind that is an even higher ridge than the one our home is built on. There are houses up there too.  Behind all that the island bush and scrub stretches roughly 15 km across to  the small township of Point Lookout and to the ocean beaches.

The newspaper photo below shows the smoke billowing across the island, speeding closer toward us.  At this stage we were facing our second evacuation. Fire crews to relieve and bolster our local brigades had been rushed across on the barges from  mainland fire brigades as far away as New South Wales to the south and the Sunshine Coast to the north.

 

Our street and the one higher up than ours was in panic mode, photo albums, treasures, essential documents and clothing were being frantically shoved into cars.  Worried parents on the mainland for shopping or work were phoning neighbours, the cry went out, make sure the kids aren’t home, get hold of the dog or the cat. Helicopters were brought in to water bomb spot fires.  Police were darting into houses, ordering everyone out, now. Evacuate.

Some hardy souls defied the order, instead grabbing hoses to douse roof tops and gutters. Others rushed down to the town trying to help where they could, putting together sandwiches and food for fire and emergency crews.  Others eyed the barges standing by, hoping against hope they wouldn’t need to be shipped off.  Some like me, took a last look at our homes and said a silent goodbye.

I had been put in charge of two teenage children and their dog by a frantic mother stranded on the mainland.  The eldest, the boy, was already helping the fire fighters and I knew he was safe.  I put the lass on the job of gathering essentials to throw in our 4WD while I rushed back to finish with my house.

She did indeed put together a small pile of clothing, but her priority rating was a little out of kilter, she had added a TV set and CD player.  

Friends down in the township took in the dog.  By days end they would have several varieties tied to their front fence, all of them perfectly behaved.  They knew something extremely out of the ordinary was afoot and territorial spats would have to be put on hold.  For the moment anyway.

It would be many days before the fire was halted with no loss of lives and our homes saved. But all this was only due to the hard work and long hours put in by our own local North Stradbroke Auxiliary Fire Brigade, emergency crews from the mainland, island police and residents alike.  The sand and silica mines are the islands major employers and their staff and heavy moving equipment rushed to create huge fire breaks around the township.

I swear one of the breaks, a short walk from my home, was wide enough to land a Boeing 727 on. It’s moments like these in the face of crisis and fear you realise your neighbours, and I use that word in the widest far flung sense, are indeed your best friends. 

 

We experienced more fires through the years and again the wonderful sight of men and women suddenly materialising from goodness knows where to leap on roofs, brushing the burning embers from gutters, directing hoses onto exploding trees.  In one incident two fishermen passing by the jetty quickly beached their boat on the sand and raced to lend a hand.

Our fires on Straddie were bad enough, but nothing like the Armageddon of all fires that Australia’s southern state of Victoria faced just a few years ago in 2009.   The stark photos that flashed around the world showed the agony and heartbreak as house after house, whole communities, were destroyed, and the death toll kept rising, men, women, children, pets and livestock trapped in the flames.

It was a dark time of mourning for all Australians.

But one newspaper photo in particular moved a nation to tears.  It sent an acutely touching message of salvation, admiration and relief. This example of man and wild life coming together, one begging help, the other offering what little he could, a sip of water.  For all Australians it was a moment of hope in the midst of despair.

Victorian Country Fire Association fire fighter David Tree offering help. The video this shot was sourced from was taken by his fire fighter colleague.

Its moments like these I feel exceptionally proud to be an Australian.

oOo

Next  Part 5 Straddie– A surprising slice of history

 

STRADDIE 3 – Introducing the Tadpoles to Straddie

THIS  DOWN UNDER LAND OF OZ

Straddie had become our home.  We immersed ourselves in island life, acquired a four wheel drive, spoke knowledgeably about tide times for accessible beach driving, bought fishing rods and crab pots and a freezer to hopefully hold the excess of fish and bait.  

 

We even bought a wee small boat we christened the Queen Mary, big enough to take out in the bay and small enough to easily push off the many sand banks we managed to mysteriously become stranded on. 

It was my job to paint on the boats registration, and it was many months before we realised I had mirror reversed the numbers on either side of the prow.  Just as well we weren’t pulled up by Marine Inspectors.

At long last I thought, we had become Islanders.

Well almost, its not something you acquire overnight.  In between though we did become grandparents, three times over, and we couldn’t wait until the little tadpoles were old enough to have sleep over’s with Pop and Gran, but minus their mother and father.

 

Back in those early days the water taxi was a modest affair and one the boys in particular looked forward to, especially when the weather was windy or stormy and the speed boat bucked and dipped in the waves.  The rougher the better for the tadpoles.

While they were small I crossed over first to bring them back.  But both looked forward to the red letter day when their parents deposited them at the harbour and they braved the crossing alone.

Naturally we introduced the tadpoles to our friendly birds, acquainted them with the island golf club where their grandfather and father played,  and exposed them to all sorts of marine daring do.

Gran had a hard job keeping up with all the mischief, the chains on middle tadpole’s ankles, secured here by the eldest wasn’t so bad.  It became a whole lot more serious when he strung his little brother upside down on the branch of a tree.   Despite all the mayhem they survived and more to the point so did I.

 

 

As the tadpoles grew older and taller, the island activities graduated to camp fires and golf at the local golf course where they sometimes had to share the greens with the resident kangaroos.

 

By the time our little grand daughter was old enough to join the boys, the daily jaunts to the beach became a constant echo of ‘wait for me’.  

 

Both boys learned to drive on the long deserted beaches of Straddie, an activity that came a close second to exploring the sand dunes and the inland lakes.

 As small children they experienced a freedom no longer accessible in urban life, and now they’ve taken their island memories into adulthood.  But of course for us time has stood still and our memories are locked into the little tadpoles they once were... a tiny little tot running to catch up with the others, a small brother hoping his tee shot goes as far as his big brothers.

 

The tadpoles have grown up, their interests have changed, the city holds an attraction stronger than ours.  But there again it did for us too when we were young.  Nothing in life changes all that much, patterns are slavishly followed.  In time our grown up tadpoles may find their own little piece of serenity, and who knows, it might even be on an island like Straddie.

oOo

Robyn Mortimer©2010

Next Part 4 – FLOOD, DROUGHT, BUSHFIRE

Further ahead – A surprising slice of history.

STRADDIE 2 - MEET THE NEIGHBOURS

THIS  DOWN UNDER LAND OF OZ

The Reluctant Traveller and I had lived in Queensland’s ‘big smoke’  most of our lives.  At least that's how we thought of Brisbane,  though no one  ever considered it a city of immense size.  Nothing like San Francisco, or Manchester, Naples or for that matter Quito. 

The Brisbane of today though had grown upwards and out, become over run by traffic,  with  suburbs stretching out into the countryside; the city centre became a concrete maze of high rise and freeways.  No wonder we found ourselves looking forward to a day we could turn our backs on city life and smog, and settle instead into the simple, healthy life of a Straddie Islander.

 

Neither of us at the time realised as newcomers we'd first need to earn our stripes; slow down a little, shake off the arrogance of the city dweller, learn to pause a while and sniff the gum tips. 

 Quick and willing learners, it didn’t take long to learn the lesson.

We soon revelled in the sea change, breathing in the sweet fragrance of eucalypt trees, appreciating the beauty of the native flora, getting close and personal to the local birds. 

I looked in wonder, and still do, at the curlews, the noisy and colourful rainbow lorikeets, the raucous kookaburra’s; felt the overwhelming sense of communication when a wallaby or kangaroo hopped into view, or a koala peered down from above. 

Hard to believe at the time, but ahead lay a delightful 30 years and more of living life as it should be lived. Neighbour John, the one who didn’t particularly want urban sprawl intruding on his perimeters, became our first island friend and guide, our helpmate when we needed to put up fences, plant trees, create shelving; the man who taught us how to handle a 4WD on the beach and in the bush.

Here Neighbour John and our son contemplate a tricky ocean swell

.

It didn’t take long to realise the Island’s social life centred on the beach.  Picnic parties became camping weekends; instead of  travelling miles from city to resort, on Straddie we had only to shut the front door,  drive a mere few minutes to set up camp on an idyllic beach or bay inlet. 

 

By prearrangement several families would merge on the same camping spot, set up the barbecue or camp fire, cook the snags, sausages to readers in other parts of the world, grill fresh caught fish.  Or as was the frequent case with Neighbour John,  boil up  tasty sand crabs he and the Reluctant Traveller had caught in the bay only hours before.

 At that early introductory stage our island fun was restricted to weekends as we continued commuting back and forth to city jobs.

But once on the island it meant an endless feast of drives through the island’s interior, exploring the rain forest at its southernmost extremity, swimming and rope diving into the deep freshwater lakes that abound on Straddie.  Every weekend became a house party complete with house guests from town.

 

Neighbour John’s wife Karen and I went through various cooking stages, taking a wok into the bush to cook up  stir fry and spring rolls.  Karen’s two boys were still toddlers, our children had already flown the nest.

Adults now, the boys, like their parents, have remained our friends and companions, and suppliers of fish to the two aging residents we have become.

With passing years fishing forays became slightly more elaborate,  ‘tinnies’ morphing into bigger boats with all the modern conveniences.  It didn’t seem to make any difference though,  they still arrived home with loads of fish.

 

 

If in those first few years we were seduced by the island’s novelty, the sense of endless holiday and riotous play, we soon began to see and feel the true values of living in a small, semi isolated community.

Small gestures, the obligatory hand wave between passing cars, smiling, passing the time of day, offering passers-by and neighbours a lift to shops or ferry, and receiving the same in return; the pulling together in times of crisis, and even here in paradise there would be such moments, gave us a great sense of belonging and purpose. 

None of us were perfect, we all had our share of foibles, but living so closely together, reliant on each other in play and emergency, instilled the lesson of tolerance and acceptance.

Gradually with the passing of time my Reluctant Traveller and I adapted to the island clock, appreciating the silence of the bush, a silence broken only by bird song and wind rustling through the trees. Ahead of us lay endless days enjoying and valuing the company of new friends, and introducing old ones to their first time taste of Straddie.

Life couldn’t get any better.

oOo

Robyn Mortimer ©2010

Next Part 3 – Introducing the Tadpoles to Island life.

And further ahead, the dangers in paradise – bush fire!

STRADDIE 1 - HOME IS AN ISLAND WITHIN AN ISLAND

THE DOWN UNDER LAND OF OZ

After taking you all over the world with my 50 Years Travel stories I thought it high time I wrote about home, the incomparable land of Oz.  The country immortalised in verse by Dorothea Mackellar as ‘a sunburnt country’, and in Peter Allen’s  hit song ‘I still call Australia home.’ I’m sure you all remember the tune if not the words...

I'm always travelling, I love being free,
and so I keep leaving the sun and the sea,
but my heart lies waiting over the foam.
I still call Australia home.

All the sons and daughters spinning 'round the world,
away from their family and friends,
but as the world gets older and colder,
it's good to know where your journey ends.

But someday we'll all be together once more
when all of the ships come back to the shore.
Then I realise something I've always known.
I still call Australia home.

 

If you’re arriving  in Australia by our country’s flagship, Qantas, these will be the words that greet you, played over the aircraft's loud speakers as the plane touches down on the runway in Darwin, Perth, Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne; it is a verse guaranteed to stir the spirit, move you to tears, make you realise how proud you are to be an Australian.

And if you’re a tourist visiting for the first time those words will quickly make you aware that all those tough as nails Aussies you met back in your home town or on the tourist trail in India, China or the former U.S.S.R. are really, at heart just sentimental sooks.

Tucked away as we are at the end of the earth some people seem to have preconceived ideas about Australia itself.  Size for instance.  That little island spilling off the even smaller islands of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, surrounded by all that water, doesn’t really look big enough to be called a continent, does it?  Who are these down under Aussies fooling?

Let’s compare Oz in size to the USA, a country that shares its continent with others.  The United States of America measures a tad over 9 million square km, while Australia has close to 8 million square km.  Not all that much different huh?  Actually a whole lot bigger though than Ecuador weighing in at 256,369, New Zealand at 279,467 or the UK at a piddling 242,900 sq km.

The statistics change dramatically though when we compare population,  The USA  in excess of 310 million people, Australia with  a mere 22 million.  In other words there is still plenty of breathing space left over in this land of Oz, plenty of room to stretch and move about. 

So having established that ours isn’t quite as big as yours, though considerably larger than most, its time to introduce you to my home town, a little dot off the coast of Queensland.

I live on an island, within distant sight of the mainland but still a comfortable 30 minute water taxi ride away, or toting a vehicle one hour by barge. We  two thousand or so residents call the island Straddie.

 

A small island of staggering beauty, Straddie, or to use its official title, North Stradbroke Island is 30 km long and no more than 15 km at its widest, with long secluded ocean beaches and bay side inlets stretching as far as the eye can see.

 An island where most times you find yourselves the only people on the beach, the only people in sight. Yours the only footsteps in the sand.

 

I can still remember our first barge trip across the bay, over 30 years ago.  We shared the journey with a number of other cars and one funeral hearse.   Most of the cars were accompanying the deceased home to a traditional island burial in the beautiful little cemetery that looks out over the sea at a point known as the One Mile.

 

It was a perfect sunny crossing, just a slight breeze stirring the water, the island a green mass of trees and sand drawing us ever closer; on board the background sounds of chatter and laughter with some of the funeral party cracking open a tinnie or two of Australia’s best amber; beer of course.

My husband observing all this reckoned this place we were drawing ever closer to, was an island that surely had its priorities right. 

 

Later we curious visitors followed the funeral cortege to its destination  and were amused to see an official sign amongst the graves advising horses not allowed - though with someone’s pony already tied to the post. 

 

Some rules on this island were obviously meant to be broken. (Incidentally some twenty years later that cemetery will provide us with an unexpected and surprising link to the past, but more of that in later posts.)

This first time visit was one of those spur of the moment things, we hadn’t even brought a change of clothes much less a toothbrush, but it probably took little more than half a day of exploring and absorbing the island atmosphere to decide we really wanted to live here.  

We stayed overnight in a rented unit and next morning found the perfect block high on a hill looking out over the bay, the city of Brisbane a smudge on the horizon. 

Actually we found the For Sale sign for that perfect block craftily hidden in the bushes.  As we later discovered our soon to be neighbour wasn’t all that keen to have someone living close by and had decided to make it a whole lot harder to find out the block was even on the market. Sneaky, very sneaky.

By the time our house was finished, many months later, our two families had become best friends, partners in future mischief, and our husbands lifelong drinking and fishing partners. 

That split second decision to commit surprised even me; the man you’ve all grown to know as The Reluctant Traveller usually needs a whole lot of convincing.  But it seemed the gods were smiling down on us that day. Everything fell into place.

 

For the next twelve years we became weekend commuters, city dwellers during the week, come Friday afternoon rushing to catch the barge to Straddie. Then winding down during the hour long trip with other weekend residents, sipping drinks on the deck with a cool breeze stirring the air, sharing snacks and snippets of news, watching the moon rise above the island as we slowly drew closer.

 

We couldn’t wait to abandon city life for ever, and about twenty years ago we finally did. Not surprisingly Straddie has become the centre of our lives and we’ve never wanted to live anywhere else.  

oOo

Many of the photographs in this post were taken by my friend Kath Kermode from Kyogle in NSW.

Next Part 2: Meet our crafty Neighbour John,  along with miles and miles of beach, bush and island fun.

 

Robyn Mortimer©2010