Catching Up With Friends & Coochiemudlo Island 28th - 31st August

Catching Up In Mooloolaba

By now we were very comfortable in our area of the Mooloolah River anchorage. No-one was close enough to give me the horrors overnight and we did not swing too far out into the channel or too near the private jetties. We spent the next two days catching up with Ric, Val and Lexie, the cocker spaniel - coffee and cake on the cappuccino strip and drinks on board in the evening. On Monday we had drinks on Arkaydes with Sue and Dave from Duet. They were tied up nearby. We haven't sailed with others this year as we are mainly going against the annual migration up the coast. It was good to relax and socialize.

After doing some research I suggested to Peter that we might try to make Coochiemudlo Island, in the southern part of Moreton Bay, as the winds being forecast were in the southerly sector. Lucas recommended that this was an excellent anchorage for these conditions, but it was a long way - about 60nm. We were up at 4am, had a wake up coffee and then left the river at 5am. We slowly motored out as the vast amount of background lighting from the cityscape makes it difficult to determine where the anchored boats are and sometimes the channel markers get lost until you get close to them. We motored all day. Where was that light northerly we were promised? Negotiating the sandbanks and shipping channels in Moreton Bay kept us alert, both outside and on the chart plotter. At 4pm we anchored on the western side of Coochiemudlo Island and in came the south westerly, but it was still OK here and it soon settled down to a gentle breeze.

Coochiemudlo Island

Lovely Walk - Most of it in the Shade

This is a lovely calm anchorage and with the SE wind we are beautifully protected on this side of the island with 8 other boats. It is quite shallow here and we slowly motored in as far as we thought sensible and anchored in about 4m of water. With a tidal range of 1m we were in a good spot.

Coochiemudlo Island is a delightful place. We took Lily around to the southern side, which has the beach for landing the dinghy, trying not to get too wet with the spray kicked up by the chop from the southerly wind. The first stop was for a coffee at the kiosk and then we spotted an island map and discovered that a walk track or roads circumnavigated the island. The whole walk took us about one and a half hours, but we stopped to read the information signs on the way and diverged through a mangrove track to look out over the anchorage. The island is covered with thick bush and huge trees, mainly gums, sheoaks, melaluecas and pine trees and all the way we were accompanied by birdsong. Coochiemudlo has a large area that is covered with houses and really is just a suburb of Brisbane. The houses are set amongst the trees and do not encroach on the waterfront. In fact from Olivia we cannot see a single building.



Coochiemudlo Island

The first part of our walk took us through the Melaleuca Wetlands. Signs informed us that the Quandamooka People came here up to 20,000 years ago to collect red ochre from the beach cliffs and gather food from its rich resources. There are 200 species of plants and 100 species of birds found here. After the wetlands we walked along the road in front of the houses for a while and then returned to the bush track which weaved amongst the trees next to the mangrove swamps. What a beautiful walk. In some parts the bush is overrun with garden escapees, such as freesias, asparagus fern (not a fern or asparagus) yukkas and others, but it is still a charming walk. Eventually we came to the golf course then took a road back to where we began as we'd already walked along the beach.

Nice Beaches Too

By now we were feeling hungry so stopped at the resort café for lunch. What a gorgeous setting for lunch amongst the orchids, ferns, palms and bromeliads in the cool green gardens. After lunch we thought we'd walk around some of the streets to get a feel for the suburb. I could live here. The huge trees dominate. Amongst them are large suburban houses, little beach cottages, kit houses and Queenslanders. There are almost no cars on the streets and it has a lovely holiday atmosphere. It reminds me a bit of Kalamunda or Dangar Island in the Hawkesbury River. There is a ferry running from Victoria Point to the island which would be a journey of about 5 minutes. This is a lovely place to spend half a day

You can let your imagination run riot here. How would this go in Applecross or Rowes Bay?

Or this?
 

Tomorrow we are moving south down the Main Channel towards the Gold Coast Seaway. We will probably stop at Jacobs Well on the way for a night as the hotel there has a good reputation for pub meals and we feel like treating ourselves.




The Mangroves



Admiring the Scenery. Can't you tell we loved this place?