July/August 2025


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STRADBROKE, GOLD COAST AND SCENIC RIM


TOM’S EAST COAST AUSSIE ADVENTURE | 65


raging ocean. Elisha knew how to drive this littoral. Swerving, rally-style as she coaxed the 4WD across tracks made by lorries here to attempt recent restoration. The beach in places felt like a switch-back. We stopped for photos: Elisha, her chariot, and the abstract,


almost-painted


stripes of colour—call it nature’s modern art--tangerine sand, cerulean sky, a thin line of white at the edge of blue ocean, broken only by a scattering of oyster catchers and gulls. Time dissolved. I’d


been


Click: a genuine Yura smile.


seduced. And


then we were off. I had a ferry to


catch. At Dunwich we promised to keep in some kind of contact. Minutes


later


she was a speck. I looked at my watch. Fast forward four hours and I’d be unpacking my case on the 14th floor of the Langham Hotel on the Gold Coast. Paradise Lost, replaced by a different kind of heaven.


East Coast Australia is a


lure. It has the waves, the weather, the coral, and much of the wealth. The Langham was swish.


It looked


down on a beach that went on forever along which fairy tale towers of high rise


were stacked BY TOM ADAIR


FROM hectic Brisbane, through morning traffic and high-rise gleam, I continued my east coast Aussie journey heading south. The morning sky, predictably flawless, was criss-crossed by jet trails. I caught the ferry for North Stradbroke Island, chasing a day of promised balm, to a place labelled ‘paradise’ in the guide books.


Minjerribah is the name the First Nations people gave the island. On the map it distinctly resembles a human foot print. My guide would be waiting.


Elisha Kissick has a smile you see and


feel. She knows how to connect. She gave me a wave from the Dunwich landing stage where she stood by her 4WD. She was born and grew up here but now wore the air of a seasoned traveller, proud of her deep Aboriginal roots. She held open the door. “Good to see you Tom, hop in.” Brisbane sizzled in the distance, another


world. Eucalyptus scented the breeze. And the purring ocean - which two weeks before had boiled with a rage known as ‘Cyclone Alfred’—now lay contented.


Stradbroke is popular for a reason. In the decade since my last visit here, it had prospered. Tourism loves it. Much of its visitor trade stems from Brisbane--organised day tours with mainland tour guides riding in air conditioned coaches. Elisha Kissick is the real deal. Counter-intuitively, she started Yura Tours (www.yuratours.com.au ) at the onset of Covid. Her First Nations people, the Quandamooka, have been here forever. Her nana and grandad taught her everything. Her grandmother wrote the definitive guide to Stradbroke’s unique flora. That treasured reference book lay snug in Elisha’s backpack.


Whenever a story occurred or something caught her sharp eye, she’d impart the history or the lore of it. During our stop at Tea Tree Lake, flat calm, stained brown, she told me “the sand here is great for the skin”. A short distance later she spotted Koala dizzily high among leafy branches.


So much is hidden to the stranger.


Trees that heal wounds, vegetation that’s aromatic, what’s safe, what’s poisonous. How to make traps, catch fish, and read meaning into changes in the wind. She told me stories of hunting and fishing, of tribal roles assigned by gender. Of sacred rites. And always the sea was close at hand. That capricious ocean. We broke for lunch at Point Lookout, one of three tiny towns on the island, the perfect location from which to watch whales between May and November when they return with their new born calves bound for Antarctica. This was March; I was out of luck. In the absence of whales, we made do with oysters, freshly caught--three apiece- -plus salad and snapper, served with chips. I drank chilled Semillon. She, the driver, stuck with Coke. Once we’d finished, she gave me that smile. “Let’s hit the beach.” Straddie’s beaches are iconic, stunningly pristine and brimming with life. The sand is flecked with half buried cockles known as ‘pipi’. Prise one open and it’ll spit at you. Cooked on the Barbie, they taste sublime. Hereabouts, too, you find goanna, waddling in slo-mo flicking long tongues, and in ocean clefts, between rocky headlands stingray and turtle crest swirling waves. Just a few weeks ago, Cyclone Alfred had bullied and tortured this eco-Eden, sucking sandbanks into the maw of the


like gold coins. Tower after tower of aspiration. If you lived here you knew you were winning. Below me the Esplanade led to the buzz of Surfers Paradise. That night I enjoyed Barramundi cooked Lebanese style at Seascape Restaurant. The fish was delicious, Fouad, the manager was charming, the esplanade twinkled against the darkness of the waves. You could hear the tinnitus of the ocean and see the figures of night time shoppers chilling at market stalls, or venturing into the dunes away from the music. You’d never guess you were on the edge of a city of 600,000 people, set to co- host the 2032 Olympics. Next morning,


in daylight, staring


south towards Burleigh Heads along Gold Coast Highway, I saw bronzed locals out on the waves, already surfing, swimming, hundreds of them, some jogging towards the vanishing point. I was tempted, but feeling the fiery breath of the sun on my neck, I knew it was time to chill. Southern Cross Tours, a local outfit, with driver Jamie, and a motley bunch of international tourists, picked me up and bore me aloft into the region’s Scenic Rim with its forest walks, and tree top vistas. A breeze-kissed day in the Gold Coast hinterland. The Rim encircles a bowl of scenic mountains and Jamie piloted us high along single track roads, through the charming country town of Canungra, upward, onward. We stopped to gawp at rolling vistas. During a boardwalk-stroll


through thick forest we saw a black viper, beautifully camouflaged. “Not to be messed with. You wouldn’t wanna pick it up.” Lunch outdoors was served at O’Reilly’s Homestead and Winery. Grilled Kangaroo, a glug of red. And after that it was all downhill along serpentine roads. I took time out--to get stuck in a tree and climb to some tree tops, but I knew the surf was awaiting me and soon I was being dropped at the gilded Langham—hotel heaven where you didn’t have to die to gain admission. For two more days I indulged like a pig being fattened for exit, taking time out for a Jellurgal


Walkabout


Tour on the fringes of Burleigh Cove and some night-time gluttony at fabulous Norte Restaurant with waiters, waistcoated, dressed like gauchos, whirling platefuls of sizzling steaks. On my last afternoon I lunched


at Rick Shores, at Burleigh Pavilion. It


was unflashy. The menu simple. The view replete with all the clichés: sun-spangled waves, bronzed Aussie goddesses, palm trees, lifeguards built like Thor. And the Moreton Bay Bugs in crisp tempura were perfectly garnished, with chips from heaven—all served by Talon, from Toronto, here on a gap year which she planned would never end. I wished her luck.


was


The rest of the day spent at


at Mermaid Beach-- because it was good for


me. Two hours slowly being marinated, steamed, then blanched in an ice


bath. Reader, I loved it! Soak Bathhouse could become my new


addiction. Its silky mineral pools, cedar-sauna,


(steaming at 85 degrees), and its dire cold plunge awakening every cell in my body as never before, (who needed the Spanish Inquisition), felt so great I did it twice. With a drink between treatments, and promised “the best sleep you’ll ever have” by a devotee punter who comes twice a week, I zinged with new life. My soaked, pampered, stimulated body was whispering ‘sleep’ as I swayed on my balcony late that night, watching the moon play hide and seek among silvered clouds. A necklace of towns lay far to the south—Coffs Harbour, Terrigal, Gosford, Palm Beach, plus the yawning darkness of Sydney Harbour, swallowing everything that entered it. Riding the rails tomorrow I’d pass them each without thought. The Illiwarra line south from Sydney would glide me seamlessly to Kiama, to catch the annual celebration of jazz and blues--the nostalgic conclusion to my great east coast adventure. I’d loved every minute. Jazz, I could figure - upbeat, enervating, sassy - but Oz and the blues? It felt like a contradiction in terms.


‘Soak’


Tom Adair travelled as a guest of Tourism Australia (www.australia.com ) and Tour- ism and Events Queensland (https://teq. queensland.com )


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