Today there were just the two of us heading out with some semblance of a plan. A plan subject to change at a moment of interest. Being early rewarded us with a prized front row park at Cabbage Tree Point. Thankfully the large tree provided a safety buffer from the painful bump and crunch of anonymous touch parking going on among some of the boat trailers.
We soon found ourselves pushing current as we headed south to Jacobs Well on the tail of a falling tide. A friendly wave and the persuasive hulk of a pile driver ferrying a front end loader had us scuttling out of the crowded channel. A tinny flew overhead. A forklift was poised to haul a Moreton Bay launch ashore. Incongruity up there with having to push tide so soon on what we had anticipated would be a casual drift.
The closer we got to Jacobs Well the more the current slowed to then move in our favour. Looking south, the sight of white clutter at Curtis Anchorage deflected us due east to the south of Pandanus Island. It was right at the ebb of the tide when we landed at the shore of ‘The Bedroom’ where continued infiltration of the massive dune had subsumed the place of our memories. After hauling up the kayaks a paranoid distance, we joined a couple of young families clambering the Queensland snow to take a look at the surf which sounded powerful.
Perky hairy dunes lumped for miles to the south. A wallaby nestled back down in the shade of its private dune after we settled down for a coffee from our lookout. The sky was intensely blue. The day warm. Quad bikes roared silently up the beach. Sea planes flew overhead. Jet skis played in the surf. The wallaby stayed still.
We returned via the renovated ‘Bedroom’. A noisy cache of invisible birds laid claim to the remaining banksia. Along the shoreline to the south is a large grove of hibiscus. A cool sanctuary for summer lunch if not inundated by tide or sand. Further south on the salt marsh a very thin solitary wallaby with a mangy coat did little to conceal itself and its desperate condition.
We returned via a different route which bought us in to the south of the battered 10 000L poly tank tumbled out on flood waters. With the tide in our favour we drifted over to the jetty in front of the house across the water from Cabbage Tree Point boat ramp. The jetty was in a precarious state of disrepair and like most of the Gold Coast, probably best viewed from a distance.
Today was a relaxed paddle punctuated by the unexpected, the quirky. It was a timely visit to an area of the coast that is being steadily being taken back by the dunes.
