Dux anchorage and Tipplers

Upholding tradition: cocktails and wedges

Wednesday 22nd of June 2022

Today’s the day that we leave Gold Coast City Marina. We plan to head north from the Coomera river up to an Anchorage off South Stradbroke Island, With the tides the way they were we didn’t need to rush to leave so spent the morning getting things packed away and filling up the water then we had a very civilized breakfast at the café, dropped in the keys before heading back to Nauti Kitty and starting up the motors.

The fuel dock at Gold Coast City is very easy to access and Nola did a spectacular job getting us out of the pen onto the fuel dock and then on our way along the river.

Even though it was a Wednesday there was quite a bit of traffic, mostly large motor cruises and very large yachts heading downriver. It was interesting when we joined the seaway at the head of the river as the navigation bouys changed directions, this really upset my OCD and all my plans to remember the ports on the right ( no on the left), was changed to the right so in fact I was right originally despite the fact I was wrong. I did work out something though, the port bouys are like barrels so there is an affiliation between port and wine barrels so hopefully I’ll remember this some point in the future.

We headed north up through a series of channels between the sand islands to Tipplers mooring. There was lots of boats there already and so we continued up to the next little area called Dux Anchorage. Which although it was a bit shallow, it certainly was less populated. Plenty of swing room, plenty of depth and well protected. One of the things we first noticed was the amount of bird life and the wallabies on the beach. South Stradbroke Island is already looking delightful.

Wallabies on the beach

Still early we put in little Puss and headed to the Southport yacht club where they have a floating dock. It was a short walk over to the beach on the ocean side. The Sandunes and the vegetation were very similar to what we get back at Sandy Point and the view of the ocean was spectacular with long rolling waves beautiful clean beach although we noticed a lot of washed up trees and logs from the storms of the past few months. A quick look to the right and we could see the buildings of surfers paradise. Hard to believe there were thousands of people down there and here we had the whole beach to ourselves!

We finished up the afternoon with a cocktail at Tipplers Café and Nola made us have wedges with her Midori splice. David and Lisa from Elektra came by and joined us for a drink and we discussed mooring options as we go further north.

This is a beautiful part of the country, with spectacular waterways.

Thursday, 23 June 2022

The mooring was very protected and we got a peaceful nights sleep although it’s still quite chilly up in this part of Queensland in June. I decided it was time to fish the surf beach and we packed a picnic and headed back to the beach to spend the day on the surf beach. Sadly No fish, although it looked great with a fantastic channel I didn’t get a single bite. Nola spent the time walking up the beach looking at the collections of shells and trying to add to her new hobby of Seaglass. We’ll see where this goes.

It was lovely to be on the ocean again particular with this beautiful Sand and rolling waves. There was nobody else on the beach apart from a passing car, seems to be the thing you do here is drive along beaches!

We finished off the afternoon again back at Tipplers with Cocktails and wedges. This time we were joined by the locals, birds, wallabies and a very pesky magpie that kept trying to steal our wedges. We had to make a barricade with our hats and day pack as he was determined to get to them and would not be shewed away.

I found out from the staff that there is a ferry that runs from Jacobs well to South Stradbroke, it would be a lovely day trip for people up in the area.(Mitch and Ty)