Tailor-made for adventure, or as a haven from the bustle of big city life, ‘Straddie’ (as the island is affectionately known) is the perfect getaway destination, easily accessed by car and passenger ferries from Cleveland on the mainland to Dunwich on the island's west coast.
Twin sand islands
Together with Moreton and Bribie Islands, Stradbroke was formed over the past million years or so from sand swept north along the coast by wind and ocean currents and deposited in large masses around rocky outcrops. When the ocean dropped to its present level about 10,000 years ago, the sand banks became exposed as islands and defined as we see them today. North and South Stradbroke Islands were originally formed as a single sand mass but became separated in the mid-1890s at the narrow Jumpinpin Channel. Together, they partially enclose the south-east quadrant of Moreton Bay about 40km south-east of Brisbane. North Stradbroke is the larger of the twins, about 38km long and 11km wide, and at 275sq km it is the second largest sand island in the world, after K'gari (Fraser Island).
First inhabitants
The Noonuccal (Nunagal) and Goenpul (Goenbal) people have lived on the Stradbroke Islands for some 25,000 years, in one of the longest continuing Indigenous settlements on Australia's east coast. They call the island Minjerribah (‘island in
