Mezze Moments: North Stradbroke Island

The joy of being in Queensland is that there are so many lovely places to escape to. The last time we went to Straddie, the island had been ravaged by fires and about one third of all the forest cover was lost. We returned to find that the forests have all regenerated, it is as beautiful as ever, and so within our reach.

We took a walk along the beach almost as soon as we arrived and came across some very strange objects - blue, almost paper thin sacs of nothingness which we were washed up onto the beach. I now know that these are Blue Bottles or Pacific Man oWar which are not a single animal but a colony of four kinds of highly modified zooids which depend on one another to perform different functions. They are also hermaphrodites.They have a painful sting and what I didn't know is that even when dead they can deliver a sting. We prodded them but actually stopped short of picking them up. Just as well. It seemed to me there was fine stitching on the top and wondered how nature did this.

A little further we found shells with the most intense blue on their underside.

The ocean in all its glory and other hues of blue and aqua.

Point Lookout on the far northern corner of the island is a small hamlet with a few shops and the Great Gorge Walk. This is a lovely board walk on the edge of the ocean with some stops along the way where you can sit and watch the whales, the dolphins and the turtles all swimming in the ocean below.

The Gorge Walk

When we had our fill of them, we drove the car onto Main Beach and had fun exploring the long coastline, watching the birds, exploring the flora, and picnicking by Brown lake which was so inviting.