Rain doesn't stop play

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After a few days in Brisbane, staying with Sean's friends Ian and Ashlee in their beautiful house, we were off for a week camping on Straddie (we being me, Sean and Liam). Before leaving we kept checking the weather forecast every day, fearing the worst. This left us none the wiser as, like the BBC forecast, it kept changing every day. So we set off, hoping for a least a few days before the heavens would open on us and wash everything away.

As it turned out, although the weather wasn't brilliant, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as we had feared and we stayed all week. Straddie is a sand island (like Fraser Island further north, only smaller) just off the coast of Brisbane. Sean has been going there for years with Liam, Ian and Ashlee and their kids, so the camping trip is something of a tradition with them. I'd been for a day trip last year, and really liked it, so was happy to go again. The main appeal of the island is its beaches...the eastern side of the island gets the surf that Brisbane doesn't. There are also two freshwater lakes which are good for swimming in - the imaginatively named Brown Lake and Blue Lake. However, there's pretty much nothing to do on a rainy day, though, so when it did rain we spent lots of time driving between the main 'towns' on the island, Point Lookout and Dunwich, with Liam complaining that he was bored.

The days all started to run into each other after a while, as they pretty much followed the same pattern. That is - get up, have breakfast, go for a swim (either on the beach on in one of the lakes), have lunch, rest, go to the beach, have a shower then dinner. I had great fun on the beach having a go with Liam's boogie board. After developing a skill for somersaulting off the front of it, I got the hang of it after a while and managed to catch quite a few waves with it.

Dinner on three evenings was at the local bowls club. Bowls clubs are an Australian institution...Sean said that they seem oddly English, except that we don't have anything like it back home. They're pretty institutional, serving equally institutional food (chips with everything, except on roast night) but they were definitely the real Australia. On the other evenings we had barbecues back at the campsite - equally Australian!

As we sat having lunch on the last day, enjoying the view from the pub across to the ocean, I thought how wonderful it would be to stay there with nothing much to do except go to the beach. I'm sure I'd get bored of it after a while, but for a while it would be sooo relaxing.

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Photos

Main Beach
As the name suggests, Main Beach is the main beach on Straddie. Unfortunately we only went to it once, as it was closed most of the time we were there due to dangerous currents.

Swimming in Blue Lake
Sean and Liam cooling off in Blue Lake

Main Beach (after it closed)
Doesn't it look beautiful?

This camping business is such hard work
Sean relaxing back at the tent

Surfer girl
So do I look the part, then??