Stradbroke Island - Island Division

Island Division

In September 1894, heavy seas drove aground the barque Cambus Wallace at a narrow isthmus roughly halfway down the island's length. Salvage activity (including the detonation of a cargo of explosives) weakened the sand dunes along the spit such that by the spring of 1896, storms and tides had washed a permanent breach from Moreton Bay to the Coral Sea.

The island is now two islands separated by the Jumpinpin Channel:

• North Stradbroke Island is the larger of the two, about 38 km long and up to 11 km wide.
• South Stradbroke Island is about 22 km long and at most 2 km wide.

North Stradbroke is the more developed of the two islands, with the three small townships of Dunwich, Amity Point and Point Lookout offering vacation rentals, shops and a range of eateries. It also has a sealed, bitumen road network.

South Stradbroke, while less developed, has a number of anchorages, campsites, and two major tourist resorts, Couran Cove and South Stradbroke Island Resort, or Tipplers. There are no sealed roads on the island.