Excited visitors make their way to lonely North Stradbroke Island

It has been two months since North Stradbroke Island has been open to visitors and today those who missed it most flocked to its famous shores.

ISLAND lovers are flocking to North Stradbroke Island today as the holiday hot spot opens to visitors for the first time in almost two months.

Water taxi operators at Stradbroke Flyer were met with a jump in passengers to the island today, as holiday home owners, surfers and families of locals converged on the destination.

People were lined up to visit North Stradbroke Island for the first time in months this morning after a travel ban was placed on the Island on March 25 to stop Covid-19 reaching the island’s population. Picture: Renae Droop

Regents Park mother Melinda Watson and her family were among the first in line, headed over to pay a long-awaited visit to her parents who moved to the island 18 months ago.

“My parents live over there, they’re in their late 60s and we haven’t seen them in forever.

“They used to live around the corner, so eight weeks is a long time,” Mrs Watson said.

“I miss my mum.”

She said the physical and social isolation imposed on Straddie locals as a result of Covid-19 restrictions had caused its own kind of stress.

“(My parents are) so isolated, and they’re used to having the kids there.

“Everything is closed... there’s a lack of people.

“I think it takes an emotional toll.”

Paige, 6, Tejay, 10, and Jayden Watson, 9, from Regents Park could not wait to wait to get to North Stradbroke Island today to visit their grandparents. Picture: Renae Droop

Meanwhile, anxious owners of the vast array of holiday homes on the island were also desperate to check their properties, after having also been subject to the island lockout.

One woman, who has owned a home on the island for more than a decade said property owners who did not live on the island had been “disenfranchised” following the sudden decision to place a ban over the island.

She said home owners had not had the opportunity to prepare their homes for the lockout, or visit them for maintenance during it.

“There’s rotting food in fridges and today’s the first time in more than seven weeks I’ve been able to clean the fridge out,” she said.

Hundreds of home owners use Straddie travel ban loophole to go to island during lockout

“While we do really understand why (there have been restrictions on the island) they do need to consider everybody.”

Stradbroke Flyer shuttle bus driver Willie Clarke celebrates the reopening of the island, at the Cleveland terminal today. Picture: Renae Droop

Water taxi shuttle bus driver Willie Clarke said while it was good to see things returning to normal, business owners on the island were shocked they did not have more time to prepare.

“That’s the complaint I heard yesterday,” Mr Clarke said.

“Nobody really had a chance to get prepared across there.

“One of the girls I was talking to was from a resort and said they just didn’t have enough warning.”

800 workers hit by sudden death of North Stradbroke Island economy

Even his own workplace had no time to adapt to the influx of island day trippers, with the taxi service still running on a reduced Covid-19 timetable of eight runs a day rather than 14.

The shock reopening of the island, combined with an extensive loss of trade meant that today many of the island’s once bustling cafes remained closed, and retail streets were quiet.

It has prompted Redland City Council Mayor Karen Williams to start a push for an economic recovery plan to overcome the financial burden of the past two months and prepare for what is expected to be two years’ worth of reduced international tourism trade coupled with the islands’ recent closure of its profitable sand mining operations.

“It’s a double whammy,” Cr Williams said.

Others, however, were simply thrilled to step foot on the famous North Stradbroke sands again.

Will and Chloe Ireland were excited to go surfing again at North Stradbroke Island, having missed out for the past two months. Picture: Renae Droop

Wellington Point surfer Chloe Ireland was one of a barrage of surfers headed to the open water of the island this morning, “proper desperate” to catch some waves.

“We’ve been hanging out for a surf... my brother’s already over there and he was like ‘get on the ferry, the surf’s pumping’.”