Mary & Don's Adventures: Weekend on Stradbroke Island "Straddie" July 27

A quiet weekend away

This first post includes photos from Saturday July 27th...Don will post Sunday separately as I lost the memory card from my camera Sunday morning.....not good...a good lesson for a beginner photographer!!

"Straddie" Island is a mere 30 minute drive away from Brisbane, followed by a 45 minute car ferry across Moreton Bay. To the North is the Coral Sea & Moreton Island..... and to the East....the Pacific Ocean.

(One can also take the train from Brisbane to the shore town of Cleveland; followed by the passenger ferry and then use a great bus system on the island)

The Ferry drops you off the West side of the island at Dunwich.....from there a short drive to the NE corner "Point Lookout" and you are in Whale / Dolphin watching country....the Bottle-nose Dolphins have 2 very large pods....one pod always stays in Moreton Bay, the other lives off the coast of Point Lookout....and never do the two pods meet!! We are talking thousands of Dolphins.

Meanwhile the Humpback Whales are migrating South this time of year with their young calves as they make their way slowly to the "Summer" Antarctica waters for December / January. Don will share the marine life next post.

We stayed at "Anchorage on Saddie" apartments. The left shot is looking from the ocean back at the apartments. The right shot shows the boardwalk heading through the mangroves to the beach...a world filled with hundreds of different species of birds & plants. Our favourite = the Kookaburra!! (very hard to spot them in the mangroves)

Check out these links (hopefully they work!!!) to hear the wonderful Laughing Kookaburra....listened to them all weekend...fortunately they sleep when we do, but they do think we should get up earlier!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTv5EdmmwKM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSM9IOcLL_4

And then there are the beaches! Empty and HUGE!

Frenchman's Bay

Volcanic Rock

A wonderful Winter Saturday afternoon at Home Beach ...23C....breezy....sometimes warm..sometimes cool as the winds are coming from Antarctica.

The water was much cooler than North at the Great Barrier Reef, but the surfers were out where Lifeguards allowed.

The following represent Mary's attempts at capturing the movement of water with shutter speed. I have yet to purchase Photoshop (EXPENSIVE!!) in order to crop away the out of focus sand!!