Coochiemudlo Island

Situated in Southern Moreton Bay just off Victoria Point and sheltered from rougher seas by North Stradbroke Island / Minjerribah, Coochiemudlo is only a short ferry ride from the mainland. There is something about this little island that makes some people say it’s like stepping back in time. The density of trees, even throughout streets and gardens of the residents, certainly has a lot of charm. It is also an excellent habitat for birds. Rainbow Lorikeets - cheeky residents

The control of exotic plant species is a controversial issue throughout Moreton Bay’s island suburbs, but one Coochiemudlo Island resident has made her arts practice all about harvesting weeds and other natural and human-made materials, and transforming them into beautiful and practical items. Jacqui Cresswell has lived on Coochie for almost fourteen years, a period which has seen her passion for fibre art blossom. “I started using natural fibres when I arrived here on Coochi

In the sclerophyll forests of the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, I grew up observing the dry, reddish-green hues of the eucalypt trees that eventually saw the region World Heritage listed. When people in the northern hemisphere asked me what the place was like, I’d often say: “Think the Grand Canyon, with foliage”. It’s quite true: remove the dense green blanket that covers the Blue Mountains and we’d be left with a stony, gold and pink landscape akin to Arizona, traverse

So common are parrots to this island continent that they factored in one of the earliest European names for Australia. Three centuries before Matthew Flinders, Portuguese explorers mooted ‘Psitacorum Regio’ (‘The Land of Parrots’) as a suitable name for the southern land they’d seen was replete with parrot life, and that name appears on the 1564 New World Map by Antwerp cartographer Abraham Ortelius. Paintings by Michael Burge are for sale at bluethumb.com.au Everyone has the

For more than three decades I lived in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, until the call of the subtropics saw me relocate to Moreton Bay in South East Queensland in 2012. From the very beginning, this place has been beautiful and story-filled, but it was also undiscovered country for me. So it was the perfect antidote, and an inspiring challenge, when VoiceMap approached me to produce an audio tour for Coochiemudlo Island, right at the geographic centre of this archipelago.

Artists and artisans have long been drawn to the quiet life on Coochiemudlo Island, but it’s not all lazy days at the easel or the potting wheel! Behind the fringe of green that surrounds this patch of Moreton Bay there’s always been a hive of creative industry, and now you have a chance to benefit from all the hard work. This year, a cluster of artists is working towards a very special event on Saturday, December 17, 11am-3pm at Red Rock Café, right at the island’s Main Beac

Plenty of Coochiemudlo Islanders will tell you we have the best views in Queensland, but don’t just take our word for it - the vistas we experience as we cross the channel to the mainland are the same that regularly draw international film producers to the region. With unlimited views to the northern horizon, the waters off Brisbane Bayside’s seaboard stand in for such remote and magical places as the oceans of Narnia and the remote Caribbean Sea. Calmer and shallower than th

Just beyond Brisbane’s eastern seaboard, nestled at the heart of an archipelago only a short voyage into Moreton Bay, on the far side of the tiny island of Coochiemudlo, you can sink your toes into the soft sand of Morwong Beach. This magic place is the setting for the most inspiring, panoramic views Moreton Bay has to offer, and most days of the week you’re likely to have the beach all to yourself, particularly at sunset. When people think ‘island’ they invariably think ‘rem