Photo shows Sundari at our allocated mooring location with Lamb Island / Nguduroo in the background. North Stradbroke island, also known as Straddie or Minjerribah, is in the far distance.
We are anchored back again in the sheltered passage between Karragarrra and Lamb Islands in Southern Moreton Bay. We are waiting for a mooring to be dropped near where we are anchored so we can save on marina fees when we want to get off the boat and go roaming, something that has been curtailed so frequently since the spread of the nasty virus.
We still haven't had vaccinations yet, although we can now book them up. There is a lot of concern in Oz about the vaccine rollout and there has been increasing pressure to open up Australia's borders once the vaccine take up has reached the majority of the population, something that might not take place until mid next year. All Australian states and territories are now freely open to each other and to New Zealand, while NZ has opened a bubble with the Cook Islands. Soon to be added will be Niue. Many Indian origin Australians meanwhile have been stuck in Covid hell in India, mostly having flown there to look after sick older relatives and now not able to easily return to Australia.
We have bought a small plot of land just up from the Lamb Island jetty. Lamb is the second smallest island of the four SMBI islands, lying just to the north of us in this anchorage. The section doesn't have anything on it, but grass! However it is flat and only 4 minutes walk from the jetty with fencing in place on 3 sides. Sundari's mooring is almost visible from the section and certainly very accessible. We will probably use the section for the next few years just to store surplus stuff from Sundari. We will build a shed on it like the one we built on our 2 acre plot in Northland's Takahue Valley, but make it stronger as that one blew down in a storm while we were circumnavigating! We may build a cabin or even a small house later if we feel inclined to do so.
Lamb Island from the air. The jetty where the ferries come alongside is easily visible in the foreground. The small section we are buying is just up the main road from the jetty.
Lamb's other (indigenous) name is Nguduroo, similar to Tutukaka's nearest village neighbour of Ngunguru in Northland, but there isn't any connection. Nguduroo is the Quandamooka name for paperbarks, the characteristic tree all over swampy, low lying parts of Australia. The whole Moreton Bay area was once Quandamooka country before their numbers were decimated after the colonisation and establishment of the Brisbane area in the early nineteenth century. The remaining Quandamooka people recently gained native title to the huge sand island that is just to the east of us, called 'Straddie' by most Aussies, but Minjerribah by the indigenous people. Their descendants, who live in and around Dunwich in the north of North Stradbroke/Minjerribah, now manage with Queensland National Park staff the major part of the island, which is incorporated into the Naree Budjong Djara National Park. Their relatives also now own and manage most of Mulgumpin / Moreton Island, the other huge sand island to the north of Straddie that protects Moreton Bay from ocean swells. Much of the Southern Moreton Bay waters are part of the Moreton Bay Marine Park, although our experience is that the dugongs, dolphins and turtles that we see elsewhere keep away from this channel because of the regular ferry traffic.
The four populated islands of Southern Moreton Bay, Russell, the largest, Macleay, Lamb and Karragarra are effectively suburban extensions of Redland City, the huge sprawling residential district on Brisbane's southern flanks and which separates Brisbane from the expanse of the Gold Coast further south. The islands have had a chequered history. Those Qandamooka inhabitants who had survived hostility from British colonists and imported diseases were rounded up and dumped into settlements on North Stradbroke, leaving the islands open to exploitation. The bigger forest trees were chopped down and the land turned into farmland, supplying food to Brisbane via ferry services from the Brisbane River. North Stradbroke drew attention from sand miners who stripped the delicate dune vegetation and dug up the stikingly white sand (now stopped). Isolation meant farming was marginal and by the 1970s, as Brisbane spread ever outwards, the islands were all subdivided into residential plots and sold off to unsuspecting buyers in what became known as the Russell Island land scams.
Buyers were told by unscrupulous real estate agents, aided by corrupt Queensland state government officials, that a bridge was going to be built across from the mainland. They weren't told that many of the plots being sold were under water at high tide or flooded in the rainy season. The poor reputation the islands gained meant that land prices have remained relatively low so close to Brisbane. There is still no bridge in sight, but the four islands are connected to the mainland by frequent fast passenger and vehicle ferries. Foot passengers or cyclists can travel for free between any of the four islands but have to pay to get to the mainland.
Next week, the winds look good for a reasonable passage north up through Moreton Bay and around the east of Fraser Island and to the first of the Barrier reef cays, Lady Elliott, Musgrave, Fitzroy, Heron, Masthead and North West islands, about two days sailing north. We'll leave any more landlubber stuff until we sail back down the coast again at the end of the tropical sailing season.
Top left: not posh, just a patch of flat grass- Sundari's extra cupboard;
Top right: the main road on Lamb Island on a busy weekday;
Middle left: Nguduroo = paperbark swamp on Lamb Island;
Midle right: Sundari on its new mooring opposite Lamb Island's jetty;
Bottom left: The old Lamb island shed at the jetty;
Bottom right: fast passenger cat the only way from Macleay island to the mainland.
Series of photos taken at the Karragarra anchorage showing the sequence of shots of the so-called "super blood moon" as it went through a total lunar eclipse. As the full moon went into Earth's shadow, light filtered around and through Earth's atmosphere gave it a red tinge. The last time we saw this phenomonen was in Hobart at the start of our Feb 2018 cycle ride through to Adelaide.