Cleveland. But not THAT Cleveland.

July 4, 2014

Conference over I headed South.  To Cleveland.  How does one end up in Cleveland upon leaving Brisbane? By train of course.  A direct shot.  But then why Cleveland? You might wonder.  End of the line.  Far as you can get.  And then you can ferry across the bay to Stradbroke Island.  That solves the mystery.  It is so much more enjoyable, I find, to ride local style.  Off the train and onto a water taxi with
a mixed group of local tourists and people heading home to the island. A pleasant half hour twisting across the bay, passing mud encircled spits of land.  A lone tree struggling to survive the mud, wind and isolated existence. A few birds floating leisurely across the sky, as if it is their day off and they haven’t yet made up their mind what to do to pass the time.  We arrive and exchange places with the outgoing crowd.  And then for me there is nothing more to do but wander, almost as lazily as the birds we encountered earlier.

The town I visited, Dulwich, lasts for about a block and a half.  Cute, to be sure, but finite.  I looped down a dirt track to water’s edge to sit.  Sit.  Just sit.  Listening to the water.  Listening to the calm of the almost town.  The loudest noise emanated from the ever present ravens, whose sharp crack of a voice pierces quietness.  I moved about aimlessly for a time, enjoying the semi-silence. Then on a whim decided to take a hike along the main road to scope out a mapped conservation preserve. What might be contained there in such a nature friendly Island?

As the hike stretched past 30 minutes, I wondered two things.  ‘What the hell am I doing walking along a strange, and incredibly thin, roadside when I don’t even know where I am?’ and ‘Does that really bother me?’

Apparently not that much as my two feet kept swinging out in front of me.

I arrived at a tiny alcove in the forest: conservation as led by the local inhabitants.  Little signs of the nature and importance of that area.  Did you know that people once clacked boomerangs together to entice dolphins in to help round up fish? Did you know that people didn’t eat Koala’s because of their bitter taste (all of those eucalyptus leaves)? I didn’t.  As I say and enjoyed the absence of noise, I read a little about the area and discovered there was a natural spring nearby. (Thinking is that nearby by car or nearby by foot?) Great. I’m walking on!

The spring, a small creek flowing down out of the mountain, was so intensely clear.  Not a dollop of dirt besmeared the view to the bottom.  A sign said, Look up!  You might see a Koala.  Another said, Look Down!  If you see Koala scat, you know where to look. A local family came by for a little bit, but otherwise I simply reveled in the gurgling of the spring and looked for scat.

Time to head back. I didn’t seriously know how long it might take anymore and I had a ferry to catch. Just before reaching the ferry dock, I heard such a wild explosion of song from overheard.  Oh, such a gathering of birds.  I thought that until I glanced up.  Bats. Large bats. Large gathering of large bats. An immense cacophonous gathering of substantial-sized bats. Cool. And of course, a picture.

A lot of people gathered for the ferry. Again, that lovely feeling of being local.  This time I rode on the top.  Cold, yes, but a brief enough journey to make it worthwhile.

That night I got to see a local dance theatre company tread some fascinating performance ground.  All in all a lovely, mixed day of nature and man-made pleasure.