Hello? Anyone Home?
I arrived on North Stradbroke Island (“Straddie” they call it) on Monday evening. I took a train, which took an hour, then a bus, which took 5 minutes, then a ferry which took 40 minutes. It was a long way out of the city but it was the break that I needed. We arrived at an unimpressive pier on an unimpressive beach and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I waited and waited for a bus, walking up to a small clump of buildings and into a pharmacy to ask when I should expect one. The lady told me it would be about another 10 minutes.
Finally, the Stradbroke Island bus pulled up and I boarded and said that I was going to Point Lookout (on the otherside of the island) and the bus driver, who looked like a strung out Clint Eastwood was like, “well WHERE in Point Lookout?”. I was surprised and I said, “Oh, wherever you usually drop people off.” And he was like “Well, there’s about 20 stops,” in an agitated tone. At last, perhaps prompted by my lack of words, he told me that he would drop me off at the backpackers (hostel in Australian lingo). So I settled into the back of the bus and not 5 minutes into the bus ride, he pulled over at the depot and a new driver got on. I’m thinking, “GREAT. He made such a big deal and now this driver isn’t even going to know where I need to be dropped”. I kept watching out the window for Moolooba St, which was where the place that was in my guidebook was located. I saw a sign that said it, thinking that the road intersected the main road we were on, so I got off at the top of a hill where there were no buildings, just an overlook for the beach below. As the bus scurried on I figured out that we had BEEN on Moolooba St. (and later I would find out that the name of the street changes when you get to Point Lookout). So I started hiking it in what I thought was the general direction of town, thinking I would eventually see some hostels and shops and restaurants. …No. I walked up and down hills only seeing a few houses every now and then. Finally I made it to a pizza shop so I went in to ask for directions. They told me that the hostel had closed and that the nearest one was quite a hike……back to about where I got dropped off in the first place. Luckily, the owner of the shop, a friendly Irishman, said he would give me a lift there, so I climbed into a little Volkswagen and headed for the Manta Lodge. Again, there were no people or street lamps (and by this time it was barely light out) and when I walked into the hostel I thought I might be walking into a person’s house. A guy finally appeared and I checked in. The lodge was really nice. I had a whole dorm room to myself. I went downstairs to meet the other people who were there and I met 2 Canadians and 4 people from Denmark. We watched Shanghai Noon (again…Hollywood’s influence is much wider than you’d think) and I went to sleep because I planned on watching the sunrise on the beach in the morning.
I woke up to the sound of about 3 or 4 birds fighting right outside my window. They do that a lot here. Almost every morning, no matter where I am, that has been my wakeup call. I guess it’s better than being dive-bombed by bats on steroids though. Anyhow, the sunrise was incredible. The sun was a bright yellow and there were big, billowy clouds framing it and mist was rising from the white-sand shores. The water would gravel its way to my feet and recede, leaving the sand looking like it was covered in glass. I wandered WAYY up the beach and finally found a beautiful hotel that overlooked the water and served breakfast. I had scrambled eggs with island toast, served with a side of this really interesting tomato relish. It was almost like a marmelade but it had some kind of exotic spices in it. They don’t serve what we would call “just coffee”. They only have powdered coffee or espresso, which is fine by me because the powdered kind has a better, richer flavor and I cannot turn down espresso. I finished, soaked in the view a bit more and then headed to “town”
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