Big Beautiful Barrier Reef

Everything that anyone has ever told you about the Great Barrier Reef being a nice place to visit is true. We have just spent four days in marine heaven on Heron Island.

Heron , a coral cay at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef, is a tiny island, only 1km long and a few hundred metres wide.

It has been a tourist destination since the 1920s when the turtle cannery based on the island went bust ( taking every nesting female and putting her in a tin can was never going to be a sustainable business model…) The first tourists stayed in the cannery buildings and enjoyed lots of turtle-based activities such as turtle racing, where staff would turn nesting females on their backs in the night so that the guests could then sit on them and race them back to the sea in the morning – what fun! The resort is now a bit more sensible and the guests watch, from a distance, the green and loggerhead turtles, which surprisingly do still nest on the island.

John and Val travelled by helicopter from Gladstone to Heron and had a fantastic flight over the coral reef and pods of dolphins.

The coral reef

A pod of dolphins from above

The rest of us went on the boat, which sliced through the unusually calm waters from Gladstone to Heron, whilst we sipped champagne and got excited about the tiny ‘Robinson Crusoe’ style islands zipping by and the prospect of seeing nesting green turtles.

The island sits in beautifully clear blue water and is surrounded by a large reef, which teems with corals, colourful fish, rays and sharks. The view from the beach is changed continually by the tides, which expose the reef as far as you can see only to envelop it a few hours later.

The blues of Heron..

The island itself is covered in Pisonia forest and very little else apart from birds.

The birds are amazing. We had read that between September and April the island is home to nesting migrant birds, but we were not prepared for the Hitchcock-esque scene which greeted us. Staying with us, on our tiny island, were over 100,000 Noddy Terns, 20,000 Wedgetail Shearwaters, lots of buff-banded rails and a fair few Herons (not surprisingly!).

The noise and smell (guano mining was a popular industry in the area) hit us as we got off the boat and didn’t stop until we got back on four days later. We got used to the smell and the sound of the terns as all they did was squawk at each other. It was the Shearwaters, who come back at night and mimic weeping children outside your bedroom, which were really disturbing.

The other great thing about the birds was the amount of poo flying around. Avoiding being dolloped on became a test of skill and determination. The trees, which housed at least one bird on every branch, were treacherous spots to be avoided at all costs. Though, even when you thought you were being really clever avoiding the trees, an errant dive bomber would often catch you off-guard with a quick splattering. The employees of the resort continually told us that being pooed on brought luck, which if true, should have had the whole island scrambling for lottery tickets.

Tree space is at a premium and some just have to make do with the floor..

Matthew falls foul of the nesting terns

The birds aside, we had a truly amazing time. Each morning we would get up at dawn ( its amazing what the prospect of seeing a turtle does to me!) to walk round the island, watch the sun rise and catch the last turtles finishing their nests and plodding back to the sea.

An old girl drags herself back to the sea

The sunrise (with bird)

As the island is surrounded by the large protective reef, the water close to shore acts as a nursery for the rays and sharks and watching the young black tip sharks and sting rays feeding close to the shore was incredible.

Rays swimming by…

And Sharks..

In the evenings we would walk the beach surrounding the island on the look out for hatchlings making their dash to the sea. We managed to see one mass emergence, guarding them by screaming at the gulls, who hovered around menacingly.

A hatchling makes it to the sea....

We spent a lot of time snorkelling off the shore in the inner reef, where you could see loads of fish - large colourful wrasse, angel fish and clown fish guarding their anemones - turtles, large cod and occasionally larger sharks. One afternoon we took a boat trip out to snorkel on the outer reef and spent an hour exploring the fringes of the reef and the ‘bommies – huge blobs of coral just off the reef.

An angelfish taken using Val's new underwater digital camera

At one point I swam slightly away from the rest of the snorkellers just in time to see a 10ft long hammerhead shark sail menacingly past in the deeper water. I quickly swam, trying to get as much of my body out the water as possible, to hide behind Matt, who thought I had gone mad. Luckily for me, another guy on the boat had also seen it and had also decided that making quickly for the boat was a good idea.

Matt and I decided to refresh our diving skills and after a short session in the swimming pool, headed off to the ‘Wrasse Hole’ for our first dive in 4 years. It was great, very different to the Mediterranean diving we were used to, but especially so as we didn’t come across any Hammerheads. On our second dive we saw our first green turtle swimming, which made the 45 minutes of panicking about Hammerheads all worthwhile.

Whilst we were diving John, Val and Adam went out on a reef walk at low tide, which allows you to walk for miles out from the island and see some really beautiful corals

Val and Adam on the reef…

Whilst most of our days were spent exploring the island and all the wonders of the reef, the rest of our time was dedicated to food! The food was superb and definitely worth the risk of being splattered on the way to the restaurant.

The seafood buffet…

The only other building on the island is a research station with 12 permanent members of staff. We’re not sure what they research and neither was the nice girl who managed to tell us an awful lot about a small (touch)tank full of invertebrates and crustaceans, but nothing at all about the research. She was a bit too keen on squeezing nudibranches for our liking and wasn't prepared for people, like us, who just wanted to look at stuff.

After four days of marine extravaganza, we got the boat back to Gladstone and the real world, where we rediscovered the colour grey.

After convincing ourselves that it was now safe to walk under trees, we piled in the car and raced (legally this time) back to Brisbane on a long road trip, stopping only for fuel and to sample the road-side culinary delights that Gympie had to offer!

The outside loo of 1770

John, Val and Adam arrived on 31^st Jan in the nick of time to celebrate Adam’s birthday. Matt and I made two birthday cakes, the first having had a nasty accident and ending up as the taste test.

After a few days of R&R in Brisbane, we set off on our road trip to Gladstone, for the boat to Heron Island.

First stop was Noosa for a spot of body boarding and some wildlife watching. After a disappointing lack of dolphins on the, normally-marine-life-abundant coastal path we headed back to the car only to run into our first wild Koala bear. He was sitting high up in the top of a gum tree, we wouldn’t have noticed him if the eagle – eyed locals hadn’t spotted him.

Koalas are great creatures; they sleep for up to 20 hours a day because the only thing they eat, gum leaves, are so poisonous sleeping is the only way their systems can cope. I wonder why no koala has ever said, “hey guys, let’s try some of that nutritious and poison-free grass over there?” Maybe they like the challenge…or the sleeping?

After the excitement of our first Koala, we went back to the apartment and cooked up a seafood storm of prawns, barramundi and sardines on the barbie.

After 2 days in Noosa, we headed north to 1770. Driving through Gympie, we were pulled over and given a speeding ticket by the nicest man in the world. He was so nice, that even Matthew, who was charged $115 for the pleasure of meeting him, thought that he was a thoroughly decent chap.

We arrived mid-afternoon in 1770 after obeying the speed limit for the rest of the 5 hour journey and being serially overtaken by angry Aussies in big, fat cars. Matt had found the place we were staying on the internet. It was advertised as having an outside toilet and being Balinese-influenced, making it an obvious choice.

What we found was an amazing place, completely made from wood, with turrets and a large balcony, complete with Buddhas and wind chimes, overlooking the bay that Captain Cook sailed into in 1770 ( hence the name).

The Balinese hut massage parlour in the garden doubled as an outside loo – a sort of Bali meets Burnley affair – very ‘East meets West’.

The massage temple....

And the loo....

We had a refreshing swim in the pool and then watched the sunset (1770 is one of only a few places on the east coast mainland where it’s possible) whilst drinking stubbies.

Matt, Adam and I slept in a bunk room above the kitchen, accessible only by a wooden ladder, which made visiting the outside Balinese-temple toilet an interesting midnight excursion.

We had to leave 1770 early the next morning unfortunately, leaving no time for a Kahuna massage in the loo.

Back on the road, we stopped at a tiny hamlet for petrol, the owner, who had obviously never been to Yorkshire, took one look at John and, referring to his milky complexion cried, ‘where the bloody hell d’ya get those legs?’ John told him that he’d brought them with him and we set off on our way to Gladstone.