Stradbroke Island

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Stradbroke Island, also known as Minjerribah, was a large sand island that formed much of the eastern side of Moreton Bay near Brisbane, Queensland until the late 19th century.

[edit] European settlement

The first historically documented contact between Europeans and the Stradbroke Island Aborigines was 1803 when Flinder's called in to take on freshwater supplies. The next documented contact was between shipwreck survivors Pamphlet, Parsons and Finigan who were helped and provided with food, shelter and a canoe by the local Stradbroke Aborigines. There are persistant stories that there was an earlier European contact with survivors of a Spanish or Portuguese shipwreck known as the Stradbroke Island Galleon. There exists a body of oral history and some artefacts which supports this notion but it is still a contentious issue.

Initial white settlement of Stradbroke Island was at Amity Point where a pilot station was established. More fertile soil, good sources of fresh water and a better harbour was found at the present location of Dunwich so settlement soon concentrated there. Dunwich became a staging point where larger ships were unloaded of cargo which was placed into smaller vessels to be carried over the sand bars of Brisbane River and up to the penal settlement of Brisbane. The Dunwich settlement was in close proximity to a major Aboriginal camp at Myora Spring. Whites and Europeans generally lived in reasonable harmony though there were moments of conflict as would be expected within the context of two very different cultures meeting for the first time. Early efforts to establish agriculture on the island, especially plans to grow cotton north of Dunwich, resulted in conflicts with the local Aboriginal tribes. In March 1830, the 57th regiment seeking reprisals for the murder of a guard, attacked a group of Ngugi people near a lagoon on Moreton Island. This was likely the first significant massacre of indigenous people in the region.^[1]

[edit] Island division

A particularly severe storm in 1896 combined with the wrecking of a large steam ship, the Cambus Wallace, whose cargo of several tons of dynamite was blown up in the narrow strip of sand dunes which separated the Pacific Ocean and Moreton Bay, made a permanent breach roughly half way down the island's length, so that the island is now two islands separated by the Jumpinpin Channel:

North Stradbroke Island is the larger of the two, about 38 km long and up to 11 km wide.
South Stradbroke Island is about 22 km long and at most 2 km wide.

North Stradbroke is the more developed of the two islands, with the three small townships of Dunwich, Amity Point and Point Lookout offering vacation rentals, shops and a range of eateries. It also has a sealed, bitumen road network.

South Stradbroke, while less developed, has a number of anchorages, campsites, and two major tourist resorts, Couran Cove and South Stradbroke Island Resort, or Tipplers. There are no sealed roads on the island.