Dateline Tuesday 9th August - Up the Passage and then by foot

After a quiet Monday following the PP Ping, today was booked for me by Jubbly as a trip "Up the Passage". Best offer I've had in a while, LOL! The passage in question is the Pumicestone Passage, the narrow channel between Bribie Island and the Queensland mainland. Ferryman Cruises is a local company that does cruises up the passage ( - these take 3 hours and normally cost 52AUD, but only 40AUD if you're a guest of a local resident. Jubbly has done this trip on a number of occasions, but recommended it to me, as a must-do trip for someone interested in bird life.

The company does a variety of eco-cruises from their purpose built vessel, the MV Ferryman. The trip was booked the previous day and was due to start at 11am, departing from Sylvan Beach Esplanade, so we got there around 15 minutes early. Boarding commenced soon after we arrived and I got myself a good seat on board. Numbers didn't look too good until a coach party arrived, filling the boat.

Bang on 11am we cast off but within a few minutes the old biddies behind me were complaining about the wind, prompting the staff to drop the wind covers to shield them. Unfortunately, this obscured the camera view, prompting me to move to the smaller open-top upper deck which offered an unrestricted panoramic view, a bit breezy but fine for me.

The Passage is a Marine Life Park, largely less than 2 metres deep with 24 islands. A wide range of sea and bird life frequents the park and this presented lots of photo opportunities. Early on in the cruise there were some brief sightings of dolphins but they were too far away to photograph. However, it was a great starter for the first serious outdoor use of my new telephoto zoom lens (apart from in Jubbly's garden a few days earlier), with me taking around 800 shots in the 3 hours.

One of the non-wildlife attractions of this tour is view of the Glass House Mountains as you approach the half-way point in the cruise. The mountains are a spectacular sight on the Queensland Sunshine Coastline and I do look forward to an even closer inspection in the future.

The captain provided a very informative commentary throughout the journey, pointing out the various sights and the birds as they presented themselves and there was an excellent cold buffet provided, together with complimentary tea/coffee.

For anyone interested in marine life, I can thoroughly recommend Ferryman Cruises as they are run by a eco-friendly organisation, people who know their subject inside out. They run a variety of cruises to cater for different levels of interest and it's worth looking up their website.

After the trip, we did some shopping and came back home. I needed to post some cards and packages and as I'd largely been sitting down all day enjoying the view, I decided to be a bit more active and take a walk to the Bribie Island Shopping Centre - it's a pretty easy journey, just under half an hour each way. Plus it gave me the opportunity to photograph some of the roadside flowers and plants en route.

Just before you reach the shopping centre, you go over a small road bridge on Goodwin Drive. In previous journeys in the car I'd noticed, this was in the middle of an upmarket housing development and the bridge ran over a stretch of water but hadn't realised this was a man-made canal purposely built to add a feature to the development. I suppose if you have the bucks then you can buy the goods and must say this is a lovely well-structured development.

A visit to the post office, then a quick Chai Tea Latte (never had one of these before, and although it was a tad sweet, it was nice) and a slab of cake and it was time to set off home. I had to get a move on as it gets dark around 6pm and dusk is virtually non-existent. I arrived back at the camp, LOL, just before 6 as light was fading.

A thoroughly gorgeous day. Thanks J!