Brisbane Part 3: Trip to Straddie

While Brisbane isn't right on the ocean like Melbourne or Sydney, it's still pretty close.  And in that ocean is a little island called North Stradbroke Island a.k.a. Straddie.  It was about 2-2.5 hours each way with the train, bus, ferry, bus trip between Kieran and Jon's and the tourist spot on Straddie, but it was entirely worth it.  First of all, it's just a plain beautiful spot and it was a beautiful day to boot.

On top of that, I totally lucked out in my wildlife spotting.  I knew it was a popular place to do whale watching tours, but I didn't think I'd be able to see whales from shore.  I saw two!  Granted they were quite far away, but it was still cool.  And within an hour of that I saw two large pods of dolphins, a sea turtle and a manta ray!

Okay, so this doesn't look like much in the photo, but it was cool in person!

 I could have left Straddie happy at that point, but instead I went "swimming" at Main Beach which was gorgeous.  Swimming is in quotes because I haven't really been swimming in the ocean here.  The waves are too big and the current too strong.  It's more wading/floundering around in waist/chest high water.  It's very graceful, I swear.


Main Beach