Squids In

We showed up at Dolphin Central, armed with a token fish that some bloke had given us, and waited, waited, waited. I saw some fins in the distance and it looked like the game was on, but for whatever capricious reason the unfathomable brain of the pod had fathomed, whether it was insufficient numbers of potential feeders or the weather or somebody had peed in the water, the dolphins kept their distance and we became disappointed would-be dolphin feeders.

Back to camp for some swimming while the men pumped up their chests and set off for some squid-fishing... coming back later with several of these remarkable creatures with their amazing chromatophores no longer rippling colour across their skins and their multiple cooperating brains quite dead.

When they are caught and hauled out of the water their emergency response is to squirt black 'ink' in fountains that reach for metres and it's a sight to behold, perhaps a sign of the terror they may be experiencing. But all that is of no concern, of course, when calamari is potentially on the menu.

Nicole has always nurtured an ambition to cut open dead bodies, preferably human, however on this occasion she launched herself with great enthusiasm at the task of dissecting the catch and turning it into dinner, there on the beach with everyone looking and playing a great game of guess-the-organ as the sun set over the bay.

The fishermen seemed to have excellent skills at getting the squid out of the water and extinguishing their too-short lives but precious little idea of how to turn them into food that was safe to eat. Nicole set about skinning, cutting, and cleaning the catch and proceeded to pan-fry them to turn them into an entrée which was reportedly very tasty, with ringy bits that we'd previously thought were massive tentacular slices actually slices of the body and the thin, spindly tentacles turned into something like crispy spindly tentacular thingies.

A great sense of achievement was in the air, as well as a burgeoning breeze. We drank beer and wine, and listened to Pink Floyd, and later on I heard Fleetwood Mac as I put Lyra to sleep before the DJ himself fell asleep and normal service resumed.

Point Lookout

It rained late that evening, bringing home the hardcore fisherfolk after the rest of us had retired. The rain beat all the harder on the tent for having been filtered through the big shade tree, which turned small raindrops into big raindrops, but Lyra - whose Kenilworth Night Terrors had led us to be concerned for the sanity of our fellow campers this time - remained sweetly oblivious and slept like the apocryphal log.

In the morning, I was ready for my camping lie-in, but having been inexplicably unwilling to leave the tent during the night to urinate on the nearest available bush (or tent) I was crossing my legs and twisting my unmentionables to the point where I thought I'd stayed in bed long enough and it was probably time to get up, only to find it was about seven o'clock in the morning.

Still, breakfast, swimming, more swimming, loafing, coffee, loafing, and swimming seemed to take care of the day until it was mentioned that a trip to Point Lookout to walk a walk might be in order, and it being lunchtime by now, an inducement of gelato (that's ice cream that isn't ice cream to you philistine foreigners) got the little legs going, and off we set.

Slight complication: Lyra fell asleep in the car so while I drove her and Nicole back for the habitual booster-to-bed transfer operation the others had fish and chips.

Back at camp I snaffled some quiche and I admit a ten-minute power nap before heading back to rondyvoo with the remainder of the ragged rabble before we rampaged off on our ragged ramble on the Gorge Walk, an easy over-engineered boardwalk affair which was very nice, taking us around the headland and a sea-gorge of sandstone (I imagine) under sunny skies which turned leaden as we rounded the corner of the island to see the ocean-side beach stretching away into the surf-hazed distance.

Gelato-eating was accomplished relatively easily. Eloise didn't want all of hers as she has the appetite of a flea with an eating disorder, so I had to polish hers off as well. Oh woe.

The Ocean's Diminished Bounty Enthusiastically Left Undiminished

Nicole and Debra stayed behind at the camp while Eloise and I went to experience the apparently similarly life-changing tantric joy of fishing with the rest of our camping cadre at the jetty a hundred metres away in the other direction from the dolphinium. Eloise had a whale of a time (har har) getting to grips with her rod, casting it left right and centre when she shouldn't have been, and became instantly convinced she was a world expert angler and consequently extremely reluctant to follow the simplest of instructions.

Needless to say she didn't catch a thing, though to be fair not many fish were caught and those that were were too small to be landed.

I spent a non-life-changing couple of hours untangling tangled fishing lines by torchlight while large stingrays glided along underneath us, mysteriously oblivious to the lures and bait dangling from the many rods being apparently expertly deployed from above.

Dolphin Vision

Tony had a $25 underwater camera with them when we were messing with the dolphins. It was a simple little thing with no viewfinder or screen, in an underwater housing: you pressed the record button then pointed it in the direction you thought it needed to be pointed, and that was the level of control you had. Still the pictures it took were good quality, and it gives you a perspective we didn't have when we were there, and shows you just how close to the dolphins we were and what they were getting up to under the water. Also the size of some people's thighs.

Also I should point out that the camera, being inside an underwater housing, did not record sound at all well.

Thanks for all the fish

After a while it became apparent from the kerfuffle of people about a hundred metres along the beach to our left that there were some animals that we ought to be meeting, so we made our way, blasé like this was a common everyday occurrence, up the beach to see what all the fuss was about.

I took my mobile phone to snap a few pictures but soon realised this was a dreadful mistake as it prevented me from getting in the water; and I found I had a sudden irresistible urge to get in the water, because there were several dolphins swimming up to the twenty or so people who were standing chest-deep in the water holding fish out for them to take.

They were ambling up and down, their fins cresting the swell, occasionally pop their heads up to take a breath, and sidle up to some crafty bugger who'd actually brought some fish, taking the fish with their teeth then sometimes do a little roll, sometimes just a little wriggle of pleasure, and sidle off again, as gentle as you like, before starting off the little ritual again.

It wasn't clear how many there were. Estimates varied between two and six, but I'm sure I saw more than two. The pros amongst the feeders let on that the fish had to be freshly caught, not frozen and thawed, and there was a but of tutting when children got too excited. The dolphins weren't really up for being stroked, but as we had no fish, well, that was academic anyway.

Monica took my phone for me, and I hopped into the water, and it was yes just a bit magical and not just because it's one of those things that we're all supposed to want to do, but because these were wild dolphins that were coming of their own free will and even if they didn't quite trust us humans - and who would - there was a spark in their eyes and a certain easygoing placidity to the whole thing which was just really nice. They came within spitting distance; Eloise said that she was frightened of their sharp-looking teeth but to me they were just sleek and quiet and remarkable creatures.

They must have hung around for half an hour or so before they decided they were full and swum away, and then as the humans climbed out of the water to continue doing whatever it was that they wanted to do, a couple came back for a while and we got a few minutes extra before they zipped off with a casual flipper-flip to do whatever it was that they wanted to do.

Before supper Lyra and I went off to explore the campsite; this consisted of her pushing the toy pram she had borrowed from Benny through muddy puddles and me trying to keep her from going into people's tents and cabins.

The high point of that little episode was seeing a koala in a tree:

The low point was, Nicole having found us at the nearby playground to inform us that tea was ready, Lyra point blank refusing to move leading to a little exasperation and ill-tempered coercion. I'm not very nice when I'm hungry, I'm told.

More Slack-Wristed Holiday-Making

Before very long we were zipping up the main road on Stradbroke Island, marvelling (is too strong a word) at the green-ness of everything other than the grey-ness of the trees that had received a good seeing-to at the hands of last year's bushfires. The Island is made of sand, with a few rocks that seem to be made of compressed sand, so sand is commonplace; but still it is covered in thick forests of eucalyptus and other trees whose names don't immediately spring to mind.

We were making for Amity Point, a dainty little settlement at the North end of the Island where we were to meet our friends from around the corner for what was promised to be a week of adventure and life-changing experiences. I was always under the impression that one should under-promise and over-deliver. But there were going to be dolphins, and how can you resist a little anticipation at that.

So anyway we pitched up at the Camp site, all aflutter at what was to be on offer, and bugger me backwards if it wasn't actually a really nice little place. Tony and Debra had their little Tentopolis pitched out under the shade of a big shady tree, right in front of their own little private beach (which other people were inconsiderately using, but then I suppose it wasn't actually their private beach), literally a stone's throw away from their polyester palace.

Their tent, though quite modest for five, was fronted with a verandah which housed their kitchen and dining facilities as well as a fully-functional insect repelling infrastructure and observation deck, all under an expanse of tenty-stuff with poles surrounding like the Doric columns at the temple of Delphi. Behind them, sheltered from the elements by a gazebo, was the dominion of David and Monica (Tony's sister and an old friend) and their boy Jonas.

The small beach gave out onto a little cove, contained on the right by a rocky breakwater and on the right by a fallen tree which was inexplicably still alive; the waves were contained by a distant sandbar which made the sea as smooth as a lagoon, and shallow enough to walk out for fifty meters or so before the floor dropped away. Children breathlessly told stories of how the sharks would get you if you ventured out any further than The Drop.

The water was crystal clear and as blue as a blue cheese isn't.

Under gathering cloud we drank a cup of coffee and watched the kids get themselves cooled off with a protracted swim stroke snorkel session.

Before going for a swim we decided it was probably let's-build-our-tent-o'clock and so we began to deploy Chez Gavin.

Soon it began to rain, and we were of course delighted by this, our mood lifted only by having chosen the rain-shadow of the shady big tree of shade to establish our small principality.

Before long we had completed our building work, and the rain obligingly moved on, so we could get changed out of our damp things into other things that would soon be wet, and went for a swim. The water was no longer as blue as it previously had been, but it was very warm and very nice. I floated on my back out near The Drop; Eloise screamed at me that I was liable to be eaten by a shark. Bless.

The mythical dolphins mythically beckoning us with their mythical fins all the time, somewhere just out of sight.

We Land on an Island

In a frightening turn of events Nicole decides to take some time off work so that we can go and make merryness with our friends on the nearest available sub-tropical island heaven.

Coincidentally driving past a few of our favourite soft-play centres of yesterweek, and skipping conveniently over the frankly dull story of the Packing of the Things, and pausing only briefly to enquire as the why Mrs Navigatrix has sent us along the Way of the Toll, we arrived an hour early for our semi-last-minute-booked ferry crossing down at Cleveland, another location named after British locations in which I have lived.

The Ferry (colloquially and locally termed a barge, even though it was not led along by horses or driven by an old man with a white beard and flat cap) which was just about to leave had some space so we were loaded onto that, in our car, like sardines in a sardine tin that was part of a whole mess of sardine tins packed like sardines onto the deck of the ship, before being released into the oven-like heat of the outside world from which we temporarily sought relief in the air-conditioned cafe, from which we sought relief on the observation deck, eating our home-prepared sandwiches in the oven-like heat with only the ocean breeze and the backwash of the air-conditioning units to keep us ventilated. Lyra learned again why we wear shoes: we all remembered why we wear hats. We were breathless with the anticipation of what lay ahead. And with the heat.

The crossing lasted about an hour before we were efficiently disgorged onto North Stradbroke Island, our probably paradise island only two hours away from our door.

Hot and Sticky

Forgive Her Her Trespasses

At the Science Centre, downstairs at the Museum (they call it the Sciencenter, clever, hey) there's a new exhibition which we spent a little while glancing through the other day.

Nicole's verdict was that it was a bit 1980's and I could see her point; it was all right but a little lacking in ambition. The highlight was the Sperm Race game which we played, hammering away at buttons to make the little spermatozoa's tails wiggle and get them through the cervix ahead of the competition. No details on how the sperm managed to get to the point where competitive swimming became important, but that didn't stop a gaggle of boys gathering around and tittering to each other, betraying their reverse-baseball-cap cool for what it was.

In the other half of the Science Centre was the same old stuff, entertaining enough and rearranged a little.

Lyra made herself busy by being where she wasn't supposed to be when she wasn't supposed to be there. She placed herself underneath the pulley chair as a lady winched herself up. She tried to get in next to the super-revolving chair while someone was trying to stretch their legs using only centripetal acceleration. She messed around with the pieces in someones three-dimensional Connect-4 game.

Her best effort was on the manly-throw-speedometer machine, a net-enclosed shooting gallery where the cool kids throw balls as fast as they can at a target and the machine measures the speed of the ball as it travels from one end to the other. Lyra pulled over a seat, climbed up and ran down to the target where she spread her arms in self-adulation, and grinned broadly as the public laughed and her family distanced themselves rapidly.

The strategy for retrieving her was simple. I said to the two boys whose tossing action she had interrupted that they should simply turn around and face the other way. They asked me why; I gave them a knowing yet condescending look, said 'Trust me, my Mum's a doctor' and before long Lyra had returned.

We went and saw a little show that they do in a little room: this one was to do with sound. Eloise got picked as a volunteer to "help out" with some demonstration that the bloke was doing with film canisters and some explosive compound or other. Lyra and Nicole were at the back; Lyra was seriously flagging by this point. Nevertheless she found the energy to run down to the front just at the moment of maximum danger, requiring emergency retrieval to protect her from the little pops the film canisters made as their tops pinged off.

New Year's Day Bathing in High Mountain Springwater

We agonised long and hard over our New Year's Day's activities, wanting to search out new ocean-side rock pools to sit in and pore over, but for all the Queensland has to offer it seems that rocks are few and far between, failing ignominiously to interrupt the endless expanses of white-gold sand.

Nicole did find a rock-pool based water park type thing down at Currumbin on the Gold Coast, so for a change to the Cartwright Point experience, and hoping for a tidal sealife experience, we headed down there maybe to explore some rockpools, maybe to explore the beach, maybe who-knows-what.

After the usual navigational kerfuffle, obviously my fault, as always, we found ourselves paradoxically headed inland away from Currumbin Beach and towards Currumbin Valley. This experience was clearly to be river-based. Naturally Lyra had fallen asleep on the longish drive, and as we approached the Currumbin Rockpools it became clear from the swathes of parked cars that once again we were not the only ones with this idea; with the intention of letting sleeping babes lie, we continued up the road to the Mount Cougal section of the Springbrook National Park, opening our windows briefly just to let all the plans out.

We climbed up into the mountains and soon mobile phone coverage had disappeared, not that the GPS map would be of any use other than to tell us how far we might have to go. We soon knew that we had arrived when we encountered some small crowds of people, and, fording the stream, the first parked cars. We continued up to the car park, and after a couple of predatory circuits decided to be naughty and snag the only remaining minibus-only space, whereupon Lyra conveniently awoke.

After some small sustenance we began an exploratory reconnoitre up the path which ascended into rainforest, taking us further up the mountain with the creek meandering on our right. Soon we came to the first cascade, a noisy waterfall rushing semi-violently from a waterhole down a cliff probably five metres into a punchbowl before descending again to continue its descent. People - young people - were down there, trespassing no doubt, basking in the intermittent sunshine and looking like they were up to no good.

We continued past several likely-looking swimming spots. Eloise was becoming impatient to climb down but the creek-banks were high and treacherous-looking and not for us faint-hearts. After a while though we came to an easily accessible little rocky beach by a gently flowing section of the creek which took our fancy, and so I returned to the car to retrieve food, drink and dookers (or should I say togs, or trunks) to complete our fun-filled toolkit of high-octane white-water adventure.

I had a precariarse time changing on the beach (bank?) while the general public tried hard to look like they weren't looking but soon we were tentatively making our bare-foot way across the rock-strewn creek bed, the cool spring water rushing around our ankles. Eloise spied a vine swing and had a go.

Vaguely unsatisfied with the limited swimming opportunities afforded us by the ankle-deep water Eloise took matters in her hands and headed downstream. I was left with little choice but to follow, and we found ourselves on the edge of a deep pool with no apparent option but to swim across. Eloise was deeply reluctant to get in, and I masked my own deep reluctance by gently mocking her for her cowardice, but after a while she took the plunge, damn her, and so it became necessary for me, not to be outdone, to lower myself gently down the sloping face of a large slippery rock, the gasps coinciding with the sudden drops in temperature around my delicate tissues as the chilly water invaded my personal spaces. Nothing a prissily pressed pair of lips couldn't mask though: before long I was stroking the breast in the clear dark waters for the ten seconds or so it took to get to the other side.

Then down a cliff-face next to a gushing waterfall sluicing a curve across the rocky fall to a nice big waterhole where young people were misbehaving, as young people I'm told are wont to do, by climbing up the high rocky cliffs by the side of the creek and jumping in from a great height - men mostly, trying to impress young ladies. Or their mothers.

Eloise and I ambled down there for a while, getting out every now and then to warm up, the outside air warm and moist, before swimming to the underneath of the waterfall where we luxuriated, if that's the word, in the thrusting hydrodynamic force of the torrent.

When we returned to Nicole and Lyra, Eloise swung some more, we ate some more, then we decided to head for the beach for Fish'n'Chips.

Parking spaces once again hard to come by, but the beach was pleasant. There were some likely looking rocks, probably with rock pools, in the distance, but the distance was just a little far from our eventual parking spot, and time was ticking on.

Much warmer down at Currumbin Beach, the sound of the surf mingled with the jet engines of the clockwork departures from the airport which banked over the beach, through the clouds and out to sea. We paddled a little, then, hungry, decided to seek out a chip shop.

After getting to the head of the ten-minute queue the lady told us there was a fifty (five-oh) minute wait for chips, God knows why, and the queue melted away like a Mr Whippy on a car bonnet. We soon elected to head home, and after spending an hour in a traffic jam, a queue which took us past an unfortunate upturned jeep in the fast lane, we wended our way back, bringing the outboard part of the day to an end.