Bribie Island is the smallest and most northerly of three major sand islands forming the coastline sheltering the northern part of Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia. The others are Moreton Island and North Stradbroke Island. Bribie Island is long, and at its widest. Archibald Meston believed that the name of the island came from a corruption of a mainland word for it, Boorabee meaning koala. However, the correct Joondaburri name for the island is Yarun.
Bribie Island hugs the coastline and tapers to a long spit at its most northern point near Caloundra, and is separated from the mainland by Pumicestone Passage. The ocean side of the island is somewhat sheltered from prevailing winds by Moreton Island and associated sand banks and has only a small surf break. The lee side is calm, with white sandy beaches in the south.
Most of the island is uninhabited national park () and forestry plantations. The southern end of the island has been intensively urbanised as part of the City of Moreton Bay, the main suburbs being Bongaree, Woorim, Bellara and Banksia Beach. A bridge from Sandstone Point on the mainland to Bellara and Bongaree was completed in 1963.
Buckley's Hole, at the southern tip of the island, is an important bird habitat and refuge.
On 2 January 2022, the ocean broke through the narrow spit of the island 2 km from the northern tip (due to Cyclone Seth culminating with a king tide). This event created a new passage 200 metres wide. With the ocean waves now able to break onto the mainland at Golden Beach, there is significant concern for the effect this will have for residents and businesses there.
Geography
The island is composed of the same coastal sand plains found on the mainland. The sand has been blown in to two large, low-lying dunes, extending towards the north-west.
Suburbs Crossing to southern part of the island from the mainland via the bridge, the first suburb to be encountered is Bellara. The other four suburbs in the southern half of the island are Woorim (about away on the island's 'surf side'), Bongaree at the southern end of the island, on the 'calm side' or 'passage side' and Banksia Beach and White Patch at the northern end of the populated area, also on the 'passage side'. Two other localities, Welsby and Bribie Island North, make up the undeveloped northern part of the island.
Bribie Island North is part of the Sunshine Coast Region while all of the other suburbs on the island are part of the City of Moreton Bay.
Transport Caboolture Bus Lines operates a bus service around the Island as well as a route which runs to Caboolture and Morayfield via Ningi and Pebble Beach. In August 2007 an alternative route, via Beachmere and Pebble Beach, was introduced. The service to Caboolture is timed to connect with Queensland Rail train services to and from Brisbane.
Flora and fauna
There are many types of wildlife present on the island. Kangaroos, wallabies, emus, various snake species, green tree frogs and dingos can often be seen venturing from the national park into the surrounding suburbs.
Pumicestone Passage, located between the island and the mainland, is a protected marine park that provides habitat for dugongs, turtles and dolphins. There are also extensive mangrove forests in this area. Eucalypt forests, banksias and heathlands are the predominant vegetation elsewhere.
Bribie Island is home to around 350 species of bird. This includes a range of honeyeater species, lorikeets, waterbirds and birds of prey. Flying foxes (also called fruit bats) visit the area, along with several species of small insect-eating bats. Flying foxes are important pollinators and seed dispersers while the insect-eating bats help control mosquito and other insect populations.
Buckley's Hole, at the southern tip of the island, was declared an environmental park in 1992.
The island seems particularly prone to instances of bee swarming.
National Park
Bribie Island National Park covers , nearly a third of the total area of the island. There is a common misconception that the national park covers most of the non-inhabited area, but in fact most of the centre of the island consists of conifer plantations closed to public access. Formerly leased to CSR Timber, the Queensland Government is currently re-planting around of this area through its DPI Forestry arm. Much of the rest has been developed for housing.
In 2009 the Queenslands National Parks and Wildlife Service (QNPWS) used imported blocks of rock to prevent access to roads and tracks leading into the national park forcing all vehicle access to the park to be via the Beach Access Track at Woorim or the Ranger Station at Whitepatch. All access to the national park now requires a permit to be purchased. Local residents were threatened by letter with fines of up to $16,000 by QNPWS in 2009 for walking domestic animals within the park.
History
Pre-European contact The inhabitants of Bribie Island at the time they were encountered by Matthew Flinders in H.M. colonial sloop Norfolk in 1799 were the Djindubari people.Tutt, Stan (editor), from Spear & Musket 1879–1979, Caboolture Centenary, Stories of the area once controlled by the Caboolture Divisional Board, published by Caboolture Shire Council (now Moreton Bay City Council) broadly part of the 'Kabi' or more correctly Gubbi Gubbi people of South-East Queensland. Meston recorded the pre-contact population of Aboriginal people as 600–1,000, but by 1891 none remained on the Island and only four lived on the mainland.
Joondaburri lifestyle The comparatively rich coastal country allowed permanent residence. Natural resources of land and sea were abundant and harvested according to the seasons. Winter mullet schooled from May to July. Dolphins were trained to herd the fish into waiting nets and spears. Winter was the best season for bream, followed by tailor in September and October. In summer mud crabs and oysters were plentiful and dugong were hunted. Summer whiting and flathead were speared or netted. Bungwall Fern was gathered for its starchy roots all year round. Kangaroo, eels and carpet snakes were rich in protein and fat. The dominant shellfish used as food was the oyster known today as the Sydney Rock Oyster known locally as tibir, at that time growing naturally on the seabeds. The oyster middens, many metres thick, were plundered by early settlers for lime. A significant midden site, now lost, was located not far from Bongaree jetty. It contained discarded shells, marsupial bones and stone tools. The biggest of the oyster middens was at White Patch, where dugong were also plentiful. The Ugari (pipi) on the coastal beaches was also eaten.Joondaburrie lifestyle, permanent display, Bribie Island Seaside Museum, 2010, Moreton Bay City Council
James Cook, 1770 Lieutenant James Cook sighted the Glass House Mountains west of the Island on Thursday 17 May 1770 while sailing up the east coast of Australia in HM Bark Endeavour. He called these hills the Glass Houses as the reflections and the shape of the hills reminded him of the glass manufacturing houses back in England. James Cook named the area Glass House Bay and was the first European to name this stretch of water.
Matthew Flinders, 1799 On 16 July 1799 Captain Matthew Flinders left Glass House Bay about east of the shore in the Norfolk. He sailed south-west between Moreton Island and the mainland parallel to the southern shore of Bribie Island until spotting an opening in the low western shore. He anchored at 8:15am and transferred with a small crew and Bongaree to a smaller craft. He landed on Bribie Island unaware that it wasn't the mainland and met a small group of Aborigines who had gathered on the beach. Although Bongaree didn't speak the same dialect as the local aborigines the meeting was peaceful until one attempted to remove Flinders' hat. Flinders refused and the Europeans and Bongaree returned to their boat. As they left the man who had tried to remove Flinders' hat threw a spear that missed the small boat and crew. Flinders fired his musket at the men on shore and wounded the man who had thrown the spear. The Aborigines fled the beach. Flinders named the southern shore and site of the confrontation Point Skirmish.John St Pierre in Royal Historical Society of Queensland, John Kerr (editor), 2001, Flinders in Moreton Bay: A Bicentenary Review 1799-1999, Royal Historical Society of Queensland, Queensland. There is an area on the modern map marked Skirmish Point but should not be confused with the actual place of the incident which is known as South Point.
Flinders needed to repair leaks in his boat and pulled it ashore some north of the area he had the incident with the locals for those repairs. Once his boat was repaired he explored the mainland side of the passage and scaled Mt. Beerburrum to get a view of the area. He spent 15 days in the region.Voyage to Terra Australis Vol 1 – Matthew Flinders – 1814
It was not until some time later it was determined that this was an island and the changing of the name of the waterway between Bribie Island and the mainland was made at some other point.
19th century
The origin of the name Bribie are believed to be linked to a convict named Bribie or Breiby who gathered basket-making material on the island in the 1830s. In his memoirs, Tom Petrie wrote: In those days there was a prisoner among the others who made baskets for the Government called "Bribie, the basket maker." He was not chained, and was allowed to go about in a boat to get cane from the scrubs for his work. ... It was from this man Bribie, my father thinks, that Bribie Island got its name. He cannot remember distinctly on this point, but has some vague recollection of a connection between the man and the island – whether he was blown ashore there, or what, he does not know.
However, author Libby Connors in her book "Warrior", notes that there was a Joondaburri Elder, from Yarun (Bribie Island) by the name of Bribé, ca 1830. Bribé is recorded as taking part in a large intertribal armed conflict, during the 1820s, on a plain near Mt Coot-tha. Other notable aboriginal members present on this occasion were Eulopé, Daki Yakka, Mulrobbin, Moppé, and Gorowamba. This pre-dates the period of the convict "Bribie". It is possible that the convict in fact received his name as a name-exchange from the Joondaburri Elder, Bribé. The indigenous practice of name-exchange between "brothers", could on occasion be extended to a non-indigenous member of their community, under certain circumstances. Tom Archer, Durundur Station owner, wrote of the view of "Briby's Island" from the top of Mt Beerwah in 1841.
In 1890, the Queensland Aboriginal Protection Association established a mission station on Bribie Island. A school and a teacher's residence was established, with two dormitories designed to accommodate 20 residents. By September 1892, suffering financial difficulties and with the site described by Archibald Meston as "mainly ti-tree swamps", the mission was abandoned and residents moved to Myora Mission on North Stradbroke Island.
World War II
Bribie Island fortifications were constructed from 1939 to 1943 as part of the defence of South East Queensland during the Second World War, and to provide artillery training for Australian soldiers. Other fortifications throughout Moreton Bay during the war, included at Caloundra, on Moreton Island at Cowan Cowan Point and Rous. Together with the existing installations at Fort Lytton, they provided a coordinated series of defensive batteries for Moreton Bay.
In February 1939, six months before the start of WW2, a review of the defences of Moreton Bay called for two 6 inch Mark XI guns at north Bribie.