We can safely say that Coochiemudlo was visited on a regular basis by the local aborigines who belonged to the Koobenpul clan. The traces which they have left to us include the middens close to Morwong Beach and a few stone artefacts which can be seen in the Redlands Museum in Cleveland. We cannot tell when they first visited Coochie, or whether Coochie was ever inhabited for any length of time. As is the case with everywhere else on this continent we know a disproportionately large amount about the relatively short time-span since the European settlement of Coochie. The first European to set foot on Coochiemudlo was Mathew Flinders on July 19, 1799, a fact which we Coochiemudlans celebrate every year with our national holiday, Flinders Day, upon which, there is a period costume re-enactment of Mathew Flinders landing on what is now known as Norfolk Beach and a craft market so that visitors can support local industries. It is well worth a visit if you happen to be anywhere nearby on the day. It usually takes place on the third Sunday in July, but please check local guides beforehand. When Coochie was first surveyed in the 1840s, it was referred to as Innes Island. Thankfully this name was dropped some time later and instead of being named after a nondescript town on the other side of the globe, or some meanwhile long-forgotten servant of a british monarch, Coochie was allowed to retain it's aboriginal name kutschi-mudlo, meaning "red rock" in the Jandai language of the local aborigines; this being the island's prominent feature when seen from the mainland. The first white inhabitants were Henry Wright and his son Norman who lived on Coochiemudlo for three years from 1895. Unfortunately, there is no mention of whether Mrs. Wright ever shared in the male members of her family's enthusiasm for their frugal lifestyle of living on bush tucker and keeping pigs. In 1918, Doug Morton leased an area between what is now Elizabeth Street and Norfolk Beach after returning from World War I. He and his wife, a local girl from the well-known eponymous Colburn family of Point Halloran, (Colburn Avenue, Victoria Point), made a good living in the 1930s from farming on Coochie and in later years their crops were even taken to be sold in Brisbane. During the 1940s, Claire and Gerald Elliot established a banana plantation, the remains of which can still be seen today and around 1944, the first of many future 'weekenders' was established by the Brisbane eye specialist, Dr. Allan Henry. The coochiemudlan contribution to World War II was to provide a training ground for divisions of the Royal Australian Engineers before their deployment to the PNG coastline. Their training ground was in the melaleuca wetlands which form one of the boundaries of today's golf course. It is not recorded whether they ever had a 'hole in one' of their water carriers. Coochiemudlo has seen many changes over the past 200 years; the most dramatic of which being the increase in population. The successively exponentiating rate of development starting with some bloke and his son living on berries in the late nineteenth century to the 300 or so who today permanently call the island their home was inevitable given Coochiemudlo's natural attractions. The increase in population has brought an increase in the reliability of the ferry service, which circularly makes living on Coochie a more viable proposition for more people, altering the structure of coochiemudlan society. Today, alongside the pensioners and greenies, the well-to-do are building 'designer' homes from which they commute to their respectable offices in Brisbane, causing the drug-addicts and alcoholics who originally sought refuge in a place on the edge of the map to gradually disappear. In this author's view, it was the asphalting of the roads which was the turning point in the urbanisation of Coochie: an asphalted road of no return to the dusty, ramshackle bygone days when everybody knew everybody('s business) and we did not have to rely on the early-morning joggers to find out who is emerging from the wrong house at dawn. Maybe at some point in the future, when Elizabeth Street has come to rival Hastings Street in Noosa, our current new inhabitants will also look back fondly at the days before the first liquor licence was granted. If you have any comments on the above, or would generally like to air your views on Coochie-related topics, please send a mail to the authors/editors and we will publish them on this website. Please indicate if you would prefer to remain anonymous. You can contact the Coochiemudlo Historical Society who investigate, promote and preserve the history of Coochie with more objective rigour than the opinionated perspective contained on these pages. The secretary of the Coochiemudlo Historical Society is David Paxton (Tel: 07 3820 8989)