Everything under the Sun: Australian short stories of light and shade from A to Z

By Ian James Cochrane

Short stories telling tales from a sunburned country. A wandering walkabout of a book, both Urban and Outback. Thirty-seven heartfelt sketches laced with longing.

Within these pages we travel to the most eclectic corners of the country, from secluded sand spits and beaches to inland Birdsville; dine with dingoes, fishermen, farmers and cas

• Language: English
• Publisher: IngramSpark
• Release date: May 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645491111

Ian James Cochrane

Ian Cochrane is a writer calling Melbourne home and a member of the Australian Society of Authors. He has also lived in the Central Victorian Goldfields and travelled extensively throughout Australia. Wanderlust lured him to The Americas, Europe, Asia and the South Pacific, with work taking him to India, Africa, Korea and the highlands of Papua New Guinea. His writing has been described as -"... observational and anecdotal, his vignettes illuminated by the assorted zany characters he meets." - Susan Kurosawa, travel editor, The Australian.

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BEACHES AND BIRDSONG – Moreton Island, Queensland, 2017

The island is an odd shape – wide at the northern end, thinning down south – but at about 35km long it's the third biggest sand island in the world. We have been lucky to have previously spent time on Fraser Island, the largest, but are always on the lookout for something different.

The first we hear of Moreton is some weeks back in NSW, approached by the owners of a neighbouring camper trailer; John and Karen. They ask about our go-anywhere Troopy truck, John a butcher by trade. They have left their now older kids at home to fend for themselves and look for work here and there. Karen smiled. Yeah, the money comes in handy, but life's not all about the money, is it? There was butchering work to be had, and even an offer to manage a hotel for a couple of weeks... but I digress.

John had the words 'Moreton Island – escape the fake' emblazoned across the chest of his black tee shirt. It's like Fraser, he said, but quieter. So here we are on the Brisbane-Moreton ferry, after waking at 3:45am to catch the only ferry with any space – and a 5am departure – immediately dropping our tyre pressures to cope with the soft Moreton Island sand, before adjourning upstairs to gulp hot coffee and ponder the thought of our first 'serious' sand driving since Namibia over 2yrs previously.

Once on the Moreton beach there is a one-way track east, directly across the island, daunting sand hills at times, then narrow and winding, powder-soft, bumpy or deeply rutted. How one bloke tows a trailer is a mystery, and it's a welcome thought that we'll meet nothing from the opposite direction on this leg. 

On our first day, an old timer warns that some get bored here. Not much out 'ere mate… if you're not into fishin' that is. No possums, no kangaroos or koalas either… never 'ave been. He tells us tales of blackfellas using local dolphins to help with the herding of fish, and those first Australians living mostly off seafood. And there are middens in track cuttin's mate, where the blackfellas had those feasts of shellfish… for thousands of years they did.

On the east coast our Troopy truck nestles among ocean coastal dunes with sublime sunsets, over a lagoon of a lake just a short walk inland – our camp with the constant roar of surf and the call of birds that flit and roost in the rolling surrounds of casuarina and banksia bush.

Our daily ritual starts with sunrise, a swim in the lake, the fresh water chilly, the air balmy but still. Next is breakfast: Innisfail red papaya, muscatels, banana and pot-set yogurt, the smell and taste of fresh-brewed coffee – hot and black – the last of a treasured gift all the way from Costa Rica.

Down by the surf the waves pound even louder. A pair of Brahminy Kites are white and russet red, flight feathers extended like fingers. They drop and soar on unseen thermals, and a stiff Pacific breeze laden with the smell of salt, where a single morning walk can last forever on this beach of a highway that is mostly empty, shiny and flat, with the gentle wash of surf.

From the beach we gaze south to the profile of Mt Tempest, the tallest vegetated sand dune in the southern hemisphere, then down the length of the coast until shrouded in sea mist, the weekend abode of long rods and wishful ocean fisherfolk that appear from nowhere, more like spirits than humankind.

Another sandy track leads across the bottom of the island back to the west coast and the sheltered waters of Moreton Bay, with Shark Point home to dugongs and giant turtles. From there we head north to where a distant lighthouse sits afloat a faded promontory in early morning light – an ancient Antipodean dreaming – or the maybe-memories of a Mediaeval Mont Saint