A Day at Straddie!

Looking at my calendar, I realized that: 1) it's already mid semester, 2) I have one week until mid semester break and 3) I did not have any plans for the weekend. This past Thursday, I talked to my friend Kamilla in my Industrial Chemistry class, nonchalantly asking her about her weekend plans. She told me that her and her roommates wanted to go to Stradbroke Island. I haven't been there yet, so I asked if I could join them and she gladly invited me to come along. So Saturday arrived and I met Kamilla, Sara, and Kira on the train with excitement.

In recent conversations with my a few of my friends, we talked about the process of planning a trip, such that planning a trip down to the minute can make you miss out on other fun activities and cool sights, and sometimes it's better to not have a plan and see where the day takes you. Well, the latter was the case for going to Stradbroke. We had no plan--heck we planned what we wanted to see just as arrived on the island--but the lack of organization did not hinder us from having a fun filled day. We then figured out idea of what we wanted to do: we really wanted to see wild koalas, kangaroos, dolphins and whales, since these are the animals that can be spotted on/around the island.

Our first stop was at Amity point. We heard that you can see dolphins and koalas in this area, so of course we had to check it out. A shuttle bus took us to the Amity point, and the driver asked what we have planned for the day. Being honest, we said we didn't have a plan, but wanted to see dolphins and koalas. The driver looked at us in shock, probably thinking "Why do you not have a plan?! You need a plan when visiting Straddie!", wished us to have a good day and dropped us off. We wandered around the beaches and the piers, taking pictures and exploring the place. We saw lots of fishermen on the jetty and a neat red-ish brown beach. We walked through the camp sites where we then saw a koala climb down a tree and run to another tree! Mr. Koala was about 15 feet away from us! And you bet I had my camera ready to take pictures of this cute little guy:

The best part is that only us four and a couple other campers were there to see the koala. We were all in awe, since we've only seen koalas in the zoo/koala sanctuaries and not in the wild (but now we did!). Around 12pm, we headed over to the Sea Shell Cafe to have lunch. The special of the day was Hoki Fish and chips with a home made tartar sauce--the meal was truly delicious!

Views of Amity Point:

 

  

After lunch, we took the bus to go to Point Lookout to hike the Gorge Walk, a 1.6km beach hike. I know why its called "Point Lookout" because the views did not disappoint! These pictures remind me of Noosa (which is 3 hours north of this island).

    

The four of us had a great time taking pictures of each other and of the landscape. As we continued the hike, we saw a couple people pointing and being very quiet. Turns out that there were 3 kangaroos (one of them was a baby 'roo!) right next to the path, just 6 feet away from us! In this area, its kind of rare to see the kangaroos, since they don't like being around people. But lo and behold they were relaxing and eating grass right next to the path. They posed very nicely for us!

  

A couple pictures later we left them alone and continued on our walk. We walked passed the gorgeous views of the ocean and stopped at another lookout point where we stayed a couple minutes, watching the waves crash into the shore and nearby rocks. An older couple who was there as well, pointed out the dolphins swimming! I tried to take a couple pictures of their fins, but we were too far away and my camera lens didn't zoom in that far, but we did see them! Another animal checked off our "to see" list! We didn't see any whales here, but we nonetheless we were determined to find them! When we finished the walk, we stopped by the nearby ice-cream shop, where of course, I bought a mint chocolate chip ice-cream in a waffle cone, which was so refreshing after being in the warm sun all day! We checked out cylinder beach for a few minutes, but since it was already getting late, we decided to head back and catch the ferry. The sun was setting, everyone on the ferry was tired, a well deserved day. Kamilla stepped out onto the back of the ferry, and quickly told us to come over. We saw water shoot high into the air from a nearby whale!

I was so glad we had this impromptu Straddie trip! I had so much fun getting to know Kira and Sara and hanging out with Kamilla outside of class. Who said that a trip had to be planned? Cheers to the unplanned trips and stumbling across the greatness of nature! Now, I have to finalize a couple more things for my mid-semester break trip to Hobart, Melbourne and Byron Bay--stay tuned in for my next few blog posts!!

Kira, Sara, Kamilla, and I