Coochiemudlo

A friend and her partner are in the process of buying a house on a small island just off the coast of Brisbane--Coochiemudlo.

This sign explains the Indigenous origins of the Island's name. (Click to enlarge).

Today, and last Friday, I was lucky enough to be invited along for a trip to the island, as R- anticipates her new home and small community lifestyle.

It was an invitation I jumped at because it presented the opportunity for a kind of power holiday. To be able to visit a quiet island beach seemed just the salve I needed for my recently tired and emotional state; and Coochie is only a 50 minute drive and a short ferry trip away from where I currently live.

Coochiemudlo isn't a particularly large island, but on our first visit we were surprised to find we hadn't covered nearly as much of the island as we'd thought on our wanderings.

After brunch at a cafe near the ferry dock, we had walked away from that beach around to Norfolk Beach, where Matthew Flinders had landed.


We'd taken a trek through a Melaleuca forest.


We'd spent plenty of time swimming in the ocean and kayaking on the smooth seas.


But it turns out we hadn't even covered a quarter of the island!

Today we went back to Coochiemudlo, determined to see the ochre for which it was renowned by Aboriginal tribes in the region. And we thought we might attempt to walk around the island too.

All was going well until we encountered these steps, just one of the many structures built by Douglas Morton on the island.


Morton also built this jetty. It was at the bottom of the steps, amongst the mangroves and today seemed to lead into the mangroves' reclaimed territory.


I think we were lucky it was low tide when we were wandering around. Later we saw evidence of more jetties and bathing enclosures.


To get here we walked past a community golf course and building, and then more old-fashioned wrought steps.


As you've no doubt deduced, we had finally encountered the ochre on the island.

To me, it seemed to be the texture of Cray-Pas: hard, but soft enough to be scraped away with my finger nail in a smooth, dense paste.

I fancied that the various holes on the surface of the rock were places where Indigenous people from long ago had scraped out the ochre they required.


Of course, I'm not sure I can discount the effects of the sea and tides on the texture of the surface.


Eventually, we left the ochre behind us and made our way back to the beach near the jetty.


It was only when we got off the ferry and back to the Brisbane side of the bay that we looked at a map and, once again, realised we'd covered less than a quarter of the island.

While we were surprised at our lack of ability to judge the distances we had wandered, we weren't at all disappointed to have more of the island to discover another day.

Indeed, it seems there's a whole other beach to explore...

High-Tea Princesses

This time last week I was in the throes of preparing to cater for my niece's 7th birthday party. Last week, right about now, in fact, I was studying the shelves at Woolworth's Indooroopilly, hesitating between the standard packet of Dollar Sprinkles and the fairy-themed one. At that point I hadn't fully decided on how I was going to manage to decorate the requested princess cake. I knew I was going to attempt to fashion a semblance of a princess atop a coconut cake using icing and my cheap cake decoration piping set, but as to the details of the glitter and sparkles, well, I was making those up in the supermarket.

I had offered to host my niece's birthday party a month ago, after my family had celebrated my sister's birthday at a garden centre cafe. While the garden centre's cafe was perfectly fine, as we discussed Hannah's forthcoming birthday, most of us still had memories of the over-priced outing that was my mother's birthday a few months earlier: $45 for an average high-tea amongst some very pretty decor. The decor, while lovely, certainly wasn't worth $15 dollars more than the usual price of a high-tea in these parts.

I'm not certain why my family has this high-tea obsession. Something to do with coming from England and wanting to play at being the Ladies we're not, I suppose. Or perhaps it's an excuse to eat way too many cakes, the sandwiches merely being a face-saving preliminary. Yes, the latter is more likely. Anyway, it seems the older members of this family have had a corrupting influence on the youngest member, since Hannah now associates all birthday celebrations with fancy, miniature cakes, delicate sandwiches and champagne-flutes of sparkling apple juice. When I volunteered to host her family party--her mother's side of her family, anyway--Hannah put her own twist on the occasion and requested tiaras and sparkles. And since I'm a total push-over when it comes to my niece, I was determined to throw the best princess-themed party I could.

For the necessary preliminaries, before the sweet and cake consumption could begin, I fashioned two kinds of sandwiches with two variations to accommodate less sophisticated palates:

Roast Beef Sandwiches With And Without Dijon Mustard


Prawn And Sour Cream Sandwiches With And Without Dill

In addition to the sandwiches, I assembled--what I like to believe is my own invention--the salad skewer, consisting of Hannah's favourite salad vegetables:

Hannah's Salad Skewers

It only occurred to me afterward that I could have added carrots to the skewers (if they would go on) and call them Traffic Light Kebabs or something equally cheesy. Speaking of which, Hannah's mother provided cheese and biscuits and Cheezles to round out the savoury course of the high-tea. Along with the savouries, the adults sipped sparkling wine, while Hannah had us all toasting along with every second sip of her sparkling apple juice.

While we changed the empty savoury plates for those filled with sweet things, I took orders for tea and coffee and Sippa straws from everyone.

Once we were settled again, we tucked into caramel and chocolate tarts made by my other sister, Hannah's Auntie V, and some marshmallows and strawberries on toothpicks. For this course, my contribution was in the princess theme:

Frog Prince Jelly Cups

Of course, we all had to kiss the frogs to see if they would, in a puff of smoke, turn into handsome princes. Alas and alack! No such magic occurred, so we consoled ourselves by taking a digestive break and playing some games. Everyone got a present in the new-fangled-self-esteem-building version of pass the parcel: small stationery items from Smiggle. And then we all laughed uproariously as Hannah kept steering the cow she was riding in a game on Wii into trees and fences.

Finally, it was time for the birthday cake.

I didn't take photos during its construction, but I snapped key moments in the decoration process:

Blueprint

Preliminary Sketch


Princess Cake

In spite of my trepidation about decorating the cake, I'm very pleased to report that Hannah loved it along with the rest of the party. Her joy was infectious and I think we all had our best high-tea ever!