Moving to an island of 300 people, it took effort to become a local. But that hard work paid off

Bradley’s beach on Dangar Island, on the outskirts of outskirts of Sydney, New South Wales. ‘Dangar Island enriches my life. And I still regularly catch up with off-island friends.’ Photograph: Graham Jepson/Alamy

“You’ll lose your friends,” said one of those friends when I moved to Dangar Island. As a migrant, with only two daughters and husband nearby, I was looking for community.

Accessed by boat, a little over 300 people live on Dangar Island, on the northern outskirts of Sydney on the Hawkesbury River.