North Stradbroke Island

Do the North Gorge Walk and do it slowly. It is a loop of maybe half an hour if you march it and about two hours if you stop at everything worth stopping at, which is most of it - the gorge with the surf pushing straight into the gap, Main Beach going off to the horizon in one direction, and an ocean that is genuinely turquoise rather than the colour people politely call turquoise. We had dolphins under the rocks, an osprey sitting on a dead branch about ten metres away, and kangaroos lying about on the grass at the end like they were waiting for us. Get the early ferry, take a hat, and give yourself the whole day rather than half of it.