Sunshine Coast’s Old Woman Island surf tales and Indigenous stories
A famous Sunshine Coast island that once attracted the attention of a Hollywood superstar has been at the centre of many adventures and misadventures. Read about it here.
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It is the Sunshine Coast island upon which superstar Sean Connery could not step foot and it has also been at the centre of myths, a home for a retired pilot and the site of a few boat strandings.
Old Woman Island, also known as Mudjimba Island, is about 1km from Mudjimba Beach and still attracts many visitors to its water and reef.
It was added to the Maroochy River Conservation Park in 1998.
A home to beautiful turtles, coincidentally on a decent swell the tiger shark sightings are also known to increase in frequency.
However, before its conservation park status, the island could be leased privately and it is at the heart of Indigenous legends.
It also attracted the attention of James Bond actor, Connery, who holidayed on the Sunshine Coast.
Here are some of the salty stories surrounding the iconic island.
Indigenous legends
There are various Indigenous legends relating to the island, with one story linked to the Dreamtime story of Coolum.
Traditional Custodian Kerry Neill said a fight between two men over a woman resulted in the island being created.
“Goolum was a man who is better known today as Coolum to the mainstream population,” Mr Neill said.
“He fell in love with a beautiful woman called Maroochy.
“Then a man from the north came called Ninderry and there was a big battle, where Ninderry chopped Goolum’s head off.
“His head became Mudjimba Island and his body became Mount Coolum.
“We’re supposed to see that place and remember Goolum’s character.”
Other history
In 2017, Mooloolaba Surf Club member Ken Chadwick detailed the adventure of a group who visited the island in 1946.
The group of six friends and lifesavers from the club borrowed one of the old training boats, the Spray, with bottles of rum, bread and baked beans and set off on the 10km journey from Mooloolaba.
The group made it to the island, explored, cooked a few mutton birds for dinner and stayed the night.
Luckily, the group had set off a rescue beacon from the island during the night because the next morning the weather had turned and the group was struggling to return to Mooloolaba.
In the 1960s, John Blackwood-Sewell bought the lease to the island.
The former airline pilot built a hut from rocks on the island, a cyclone shelter and a small dam that some have mistaken for a pool.
He made jewellery, without electricity, and would travel to Mooloolaba to sell his wares.
The island protects the southernmost wedge-tailed shearwater bird colony in Queensland.
Sunshine Coast surfing legend Peter Troy owned the lease in the 1980s and 90s and would stay in the hut after commuting to the island from Marcoola in a tinnie.
He surfed the breaks near the island.
Mr Troy’s wife, Libby Troy, spoke to the Sunshine Coast Daily in 2017 and also dispelled the common myth that Sean Connery ever stepped foot on the island.
The James Bond actor often holidayed on the Sunshine Coast at the height of his fame but was stopped from visiting the island after the boat he was on could not land in the swell, leaving the superstar left to admire its beauty from a distance.
Boat strandings
In 2016, a motor cruiser was salvaged after it ran aground on rocks on the eastern side of the island.
The boat owner had jumped overboard before being rescued by a friend with a jetski.
In 2018, an 8.5m cruiser Shark Punch was stranded on the northwest side of the island while in 2019, a pair on a snorkelling trip was rescued off the island when their jetski crashed.
The jetski crashed onto the island’s rocks and the pair then swam to the island and scaled the rocks on the ocean side.
Two lifesavers paddled out to the women to rescue them from the island when the Coast Guard could not get close enough to the island to pick them up.
The water around the island
Sunreef Manager John Fell said the waters off the island provide a unique experience on the Coast, offering a reef environment that is easy to access.
“Mudjimba Island is one of the best destinations for in-water activities on the Coast,” Mr Fell said.
“Largely because it’s very accessible, it’s only 15 minutes from the river mouth to get there and on arrival, there’s a number of different locations that offer really diverse marine interactions.
“On a good day divers will enjoy between 10 and 15 metres of visibility, with depth ranges from about three metres in the shallow area to about 15 metres at the bottom of the wall.
“For snorkellers it’s mainly in that shallow water area between two and five metres.”
Mr Fell said the marine life around the island was rich in diversity.
“It’s a habitat for green sea turtles and hawksbill turtles and we typically see somewhere between 15 to 20 turtles in the southwestern pocket area off the island at any one time.
“You’ll frequently see octopus around the island, big schools of tropical fish, butter bream, baby barracudas, you’ll see some of the larger fish coming through like Spanish mackerel every now and then.
“We quite often see eagle rays, blue spotted stingrays, and wobbegong sharks, which are quite prolific around the island.
“It’s also surrounded by some incredibly healthy coral reefs.”
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