“Guys the ferry leaves in ten minutes, we need to get to the dock!” I heard my friend Kendra shout from somewhere down the beach.

As we gathered our things and began the journey back across the island to the dock for the last time I reflected on our last few months in this place. “Coochiemudlo Island? It sounds like you just made that up.” I remembered saying when Kendra suggested we spend our day off of school exploring one of the smallest islands in Moreton Bay.

“I didn’t make it up! I found it on Google and I really want us to go!” She replied. That was all the convincing the five of us needed at that point. We had just begun our semester in Australia and we were dying to explore our new home.

At the dinner table that night I told my host parents our plans for the next day. “Coochie?” My host-dad, Mark, grimaced, “You don’t want to waste your time going there, you’d have better luck going somewhere like Straddie, it’s much nicer.”

“It’s actually really boring,” my host-sister added “It takes nearly and hour to get there and there isn’t anything to do.”

Despite my family’s advice, the next day I made the hour-long journey by bus and ferry with my four other American friends. We shared stories of all the people who told us this trip wouldn’t be worth the time and laughed because they were probably right.

When we got there we were pleasantly surprised; the island was anything but a disappointment. The island is only about five square kilometers in size, which was great for us because it meant less opportunity for us to get lost. The water surrounding us was clear enough to see hundreds of jellyfish swimming around in it. The sand was white as snow and covered with pumice stones that have been washed up from the volcanoes in Indonesia. Red rocks and thick coastal hibiscus trees covered the inner parts of the land. As we stepped off the dock and onto the island for the first time none of us could understand how our families saw this place as something other than beautiful. Maybe it has to do with the fact that we all came from states where beaches like this don’t exist or maybe the honeymoon phase of being in a new country hadn’t ended yet, but either way we were sold.

Every Tuesday for the next four months we took the long journey out to “our island.” It became a ritual that as soon as we got off the boat we would head straight to the Red Rock Café, which was the self proclaimed “most romantic café in Brisbane” as well as the only restaurant on all of Coochiemudlo. Romantic must mean something different in Australia because it looked more like the inside of a Five Guys burger joint than a place I would want to swoon the love of my life. It only took a few weeks for the waiters to memorize our orders: five iced mochas and a plate of hot chips for the table.

“Ah! Our fun American friends are back!” We would hear as soon as we walked through the doors. They would come talk with us for a minute or two just to hear our latest stories about getting lost on public transport or about our latest run in with a deadly animal.

“I feel like I’m watching TV when I listen to you guys talk,” they would tell us, “You sound so American!”

The café was almost always void of anyone aside from the staff which made it the ideal spot for a Bible study, but I’ll admit the real reason we kept coming back was because it was the only Aussie restaurant we had found that didn’t charge an extra 50 cents for ketchup; a luxury we had taken for granted in the States.

We would loiter for a while until the smell of fish and chips overwhelmed us and then we knew it was time to move our party to the beach.

About a half kilometer down from the café was a pile of rock, pumice stone, and logs about fifteen feet high where we loved to sit and take pictures. It was close enough to the water that we could feel the sea breeze, but far enough back that the trees provided some shade from the harsh Australian sun, easily making it our favorite spot. One day, Tom, who had brought his go-pro along sized up the hill and said, “How cool would it be if I ran up the pile with my go-pro?”

Before we could tell him what a poorly thought out plan that was he had already gotten his foot stuck between rocks and had begun to tumble back down.

“That wasn’t as cool as I thought it would be.” Tom said as he lay in the sand clutching his now swollen ankle.

An Aboriginal couple that had watched the whole thing unfold from a few feet down the beach rushed over to us. “That’s what happens when you mistreat the land that isn’t yours.” The man said. We all fell silent. “Nah, I’m only joking!” He began to laugh, “That was an impressive fall, mate, good on you!” The woman he was started laughing too. “I’m Ray, this is my wife, Lee. Our house is right up the beach, why don’t you come back with us and we’ll get some ice for your ankle.”

We threw “stranger danger” out the window and followed Ray and Lee back to their bungalow. They gave Tom some ice for his ankle and served us all tea and biscuits that we savored as we listened to them tell us about the history of the island and how their people, the Wiradjuri’s named it for its beautiful red rocks. After a couple hours, the swelling on Tom’s ankle was gone and we had hurry to catch the last ferry back to the mainland. We thanked Ray and Lee for the tea and biscuits and said our goodbyes.

“Goodbye,” Lee yelled as we walked back down the beach, “May you be blessed wherever you go.”

“One more picture before we leave!” I heard someone say. We gathered around the pier and put our happy faces on to document this moment none of us wanted to forget.

“Are you guys getting on? I have to get this thing going.” The ferry driver said.

We took our place on a row of backwards facing seats and watched our island disappear.