Karragarra island

We caught the ferry over to Karragarra Island, a small island across from Russell Island in Moreton Bay that we intended to walk around. On one side was a narrow strip of sandy beach and on the opposite side, mangroves.

Walking over family ground

In my family, our grandfather was a mystery. He has been talked of, speculated about, but no one could pin down his elusive past. One period we were certain of, was when he owned a large stretch of land.

Fresh water turtle hike

Within Turtle Swamp Wetlands, there was a wide trail amongst Australia’s best vegetation. If I’d visited in the spring, the ground would have been covered in wildflowers. But when I arrived on Russell Island, it was winter, or at least that’s what the locals thought a twenty-three degree day was.

Turtle Swamp Wetlands

While trees were being bulldozed to build more houses, Russell Island’s Turtle Swamp Wetland was preserved. This was a place to soak up the beautiful squiggly bark gum trees, grass trees and paper barks.

Return to Sandy Beach

Over a year later, I returned to the same Russell Island beach where North Stradbroke Island stretched like a giant crocodile across the channel. Last visit, the tide was high and the beach appeared no more than a metre wide, but on my next trip, the tide was out, and the rippled sand stretched for one hundred metres to the sea.

Place of hundreds of islands

Moreton Bay is home to more than three hundred islands. I returned to one of those islands, Russell to walk the land where my father’s banana farm had once been.

A ferry ride into the past

I crossed the sparkling waters of Moreton Bay from Redland Bay Pier to Russell Island. The journey was once a long haul in a slow wooden boat. Now the crossing took no time.