A North Stradbroke Island escape with Sylvia Jeffreys
That holiday feeling starts in Queensland.
Updated
Beach cricket, sunset barbecues and gelato-fuelled walks: Sylvia Jeffreys on the Queensland holiday tradition her family keeps returning to.
North Stradbroke Island runs on its own clock. Tourism and Events Queensland
Every second Christmas, Sylvia Jeffreys packs up the car, loads the kids and drives north. Not to a resort. Not somewhere new. Back to Queensland. Back to the beaches, family and sense of belonging that have shaped every summer she can remember.
“It’s a Christmas pilgrimage for the extended family,” she says. “Aunts, uncles, cousins, my brother and sister, my children, Pete. Three generations.” For the Today Extra co-host, Queensland isn’t just where she’s from. It’s where she exhales. “I spend a whole year looking forward to it, knowing I get that time with everyone in a beautiful place.”
Crossing into calm
The drive north from Sydney is long. Work runs until the final minute, and the pre-Christmas mayhem doesn’t let go easily. But there is an instant, reliable as the tides, when all of it slips away.
Sylvia and husband Peter (right) swap the news room for sand dunes. Supplied
“The moment we get on the [ferry],” Jeffreys says, “that’s when everything flicks into holiday mode and the whole year of chaos and running and racing and deadlines sinks away behind you.” It’s right on cue. “Somewhere between my first XXXX Gold and the wind in my hair on the [ferry], I feel at peace.”
Barefoot, salty, completely off-grid
North Stradbroke Island runs on its own clock. Her cousin reads the surf each morning and picks the beach. From there, four-wheel driving, fishing, rolling in and out of the surf, and a visit to The Straddie Hotel for their hot chips (especially delicious when devoured after an ocean swim). By sunset, someone fires up the barbecue above Deadman’s Beach and everyone arrives with a plate.
“Barefoot, sand between the toes, salty hair. No makeup, a pair of old shorts and a t-shirt on repeat. Nothing in the diary for the whole week.” By late afternoon, everyone gravitates back toward the lawn to play cricket and touch footy while kangaroos hop past in the fading light. “North Stradbroke Island looks like an oil painting at sunset,” she says. “So beautiful. So Australian.”
Sylvia and sister Claire (left) soaking up a North 'Straddie' sunset. Supplied
Sand dunes and gelato bribes
When energy levels are high, they toboggan down the sand hill on boogie boards and explore rock pools before settling in for cheese and crackers on the beach. The Gorge Walk at Point Lookout is a family ritual, with dolphins and sea turtles spotted along the way. But little legs need convincing.
“We bribe the kids with the promise of gelato at the end,” she laughs. Her and the family’s go-to while on the island? Whale Tail Gelati & Coffee Bar. “One is chocolate, one is mango. You get to the end, you have your gelato, and everyone is happy.”
Little legs need convincing (especially after an adventure-packed day of sand dunes and beach cricket) Supplied
The summers that shaped her
Jeffreys grew up doing summers on the Gold Coast, the kind that stretch out golden and endless. “Broadbeach. Touch footy. Cricket with cousins. A 30-cent McDonald’s ice cream. A cream bun from the bakery,” she laughs. “And my sister shaking the towel off with no awareness.” Simple pleasures, repeated until they became the foundations of childhood.
Now she watches her own sons, Oscar and Henry, building the same kind of family archive. “Our kids and their cousins are forging these memories in one place,” she says, “which I think become part of you for the rest of your life. That’s what we’re trying to create for them.”
Queensland just gets it
Ask Jeffreys what keeps drawing her back and she doesn’t flinch. “It’s the classic holiday state. Everyone has memories of going to Queensland on holidays. It has that reputation and it always lives up to it.”
Beyond the sunshine, she says, it comes down to the people. “The moment you meet a Queenslander, they’re immediately your friend. They are warm and embracing and I think that’s what makes the state so wonderful. My dad would say hello to every single person he passed in the street. I didn’t understand why he was saying hello to strangers. But it’s just what you do in Queensland.”
That week together, she says, leaves her feeling full, happy and satisfied. “There’s always a sadness when it ends. But then you start counting down until the next one.”
Start planning that holiday feeling at Queensland.com
