I didn’t move to Russell Island because I had always dreamed of living on an island. In fact, until just over a year ago, I didn’t know where Russell Island was. I grew up in Brisbane for most of my childhood, and had somehow remained completely oblivious to the collection of islands sitting across the bay.
While working in Italy last year, I started wondering if it was time for a change from the Sunshine Coast. One night, I went on realestate.com, entered what I thought I could spend if I sold up, and started scrolling. Then I saw a house on Russell Island. I had to Google it. An island? Was I really considering moving to one?
The more I looked, the more intrigued I became. I sent the property to my daughters, who both immediately told me I’d be crazy to move there, followed by screenshots of Reddit threads detailing everything apparently wrong with Russell Island. They had perhaps forgotten who they were dealing with. I have never been particularly frightened by a decision that makes perfect sense to nobody else.
The day I arrived back in Australia, I rang LJ Hooker and organised to see the house the following day. I walked through it and immediately realised I didn’t want it. It was too big and far too much work for one person. What I actually needed was smaller and simpler. The agent mentioned that the same builder had a tiny home for sale and asked if I wanted to look. We drove into the driveway. There was an avocado tree. “Sold.” I hadn’t even seen the house.
Looking back, perhaps this wasn’t the most conventional approach to purchasing property, but something about the place felt right before I could explain why. When I stepped inside, that feeling only became stronger. It was small, different and completely outside the life I had been living, yet somehow exactly what I needed next.
A few days later, I returned with a friend to explore the area. We wandered off with nowhere particular to go and were approached by a woman in a car who said she hadn’t seen us around before and asked if we needed a lift. I explained I was looking at buying a house but had no idea where we were going. She offered to take us to the bowls club. Her name was Nell.
A few bottles of champagne later, we realised we weren’t going to be driving anywhere, so we started asking locals about somewhere to stay. People we had never met were offering us beds in their homes. Complete strangers were welcoming us as though we had somehow been misplaced and they were simply helping us get back where we belonged. We eventually booked a room at Marleys, and the next morning I woke up with one very clear realisation. I needed to live here.
It wasn’t the house or the avocado tree. It was the people. The friendliness, the sense of community and that laid back small town feeling immediately felt familiar. People noticed you, asked questions, offered help and looked out for one another. After years of moving around, I had stumbled across the one place that made me want to stop. So I bought the house and my daughters have since had to eat their words.
The strangest part was that moving somewhere where I knew absolutely nobody turned out to be one of the easiest transitions of my life, largely because of the Friendly Bay Islander. I knew I wanted to write, so shortly after arriving I reached out to Gerard and asked if there was any work. As luck would have it, there was. I was given an opportunity to prove myself, and what followed has been one of the most rewarding years of my working life.
Suddenly I was meeting people, being invited into workshops, studios, garages, sheds and homes and discovering just how much talent exists across these islands. But it’s not only the makers and creators who fascinate me. Some of my favourite stories have come from people who tell me they “don’t really have a story,” only to reveal a lifetime of adventures, resilience, heartbreak and unexpected twists. I’ve realised everyone has a story; sometimes they just need someone curious enough to ask. I feel incredibly lucky that my job gives me a reason to keep knocking on doors and finding them.
That became part of the inspiration for The Mooring, a social media page I started to showcase the positive side of island life. I wanted to celebrate the place I had fallen in love with, but I also remembered those screenshots my daughters had sent me. If someone was Googling what Russell Island was like, I wanted them to find the people and community I had discovered.
The Mooring grew quickly, and then it disappeared. After being reported, the pages were shut down, beginning 152 days of trying to get them reinstated. It was incredibly difficult, but it also showed me what this community is really about. People checked in, offered support and reached out.
The same thing happened with Somewhere Else, the concept show I created to introduce the community to new talent, fresh ideas and creative concepts. The third instalment, featuring Dan Hannaford, was about to be promoted when my pages went down. It would have been easy to give up, but the community got behind it and the show sold out. It reinforced something I had already begun to understand; communities are built by people choosing to support one another. And that is what I love about living here.
I also love that the woman who stopped to give me a lift on my second visit, Nell, is now one of my best friends and lives a few doors away. We drink on each other’s balconies, walk, do Pilates, share meals and have accumulated a wonderfully chaotic group of creative women around us. I love the curlews, the absence of traffic lights and the feeling that life has slowed down just enough to notice it happening. I love the ferry, the wildlife and my growing collection of feathered friends. I love my avocado tree, although I am determined this year to harvest enough fruit to share with the neighbours before the ibis take control. And I love the people whose stories remind me why I wanted to write in the first place.
Robert and Shane, sitting in the back of the ute at IGA, remain one of my favourite stories. Telling their story allowed people to see them a little differently. I still have people tell me they now say hello to them, that the story helped them understand their circumstances and motivations. Even better, members of the community started buying them coffees. That is the kind of impact I hope my writing can have. It doesn’t always need to change the world, sometimes it can simply change the way someone looks at another person.
And then there is Elissa. When I started with the paper, Gerard was at the helm. Shortly afterwards, Elissa found herself thrown into the deep end and taking over the magazine in its entirety. Watching her grow the publication from strength to strength, while supporting my ideas and always having my back, has been something I genuinely admire and am so grateful for.
So, one year on, I think about the woman sitting in Italy, staring at a property website because she felt like a new adventure was in order. She didn’t know where Russell Island was, didn’t know anyone there, had two daughters telling her she was crazy, and then bought a house because of an avocado tree. Somehow, she got it right.
A year later, I have a community, a newspaper full of stories and a growing collection of people I now call friends. I have a reason to get up every day and go looking for the next interesting person hiding behind a workshop door, inside a studio or somewhere in a shed.
For someone who has spent most of her life wondering where she might go next, it is a strange and wonderful feeling to finally wonder how long I get to stay. I think the answer might be forever.
Thank you to Gerard for giving me the opportunity to prove myself, to Elissa for believing in what I do, and to the entire island community for making a stranger feel like she belonged. I came here looking for a smaller house and a new beginning. Somewhere along the way, I found a much bigger thing. I found home.
