We travelled up the coast to Gladstone – a non-descript town which is best known as a port for the mining industry –  and booked into a non-descript Motel, ready to make the trip out to Heron Island for the Easter Break. The next morning, we popped into the Heron Island information centre at the Marina and were disappointed to learn that the boat had broken down.  No trip to Heron Island for us that day. They seemed surprised that we didn’t know. Apparently, they’d tried to phone us but couldn’t get through…hmmm…how hard did they try…?

On the plus side, Heron Island Resort offered to pay for a night in a hotel and they’d make sure we got to the Island the next day. The sweetest part of the deal was that the mode of transport would be helicopter. Going on a helicopter is somewhere near the top of David’s bucket list, so he was really excited. In fact, he’d been keen to do a tourist ride on a helicopter when we were in New Zealand and I’d been mean and said “No, waste of money” –  so he was delighted. The downside was, the Resort couldn’t tell us what time our flight would be  – but they promised to phone and let us know. By the end of the day, we hadn’t heard from them so we forgot about it and went out on the town:  there was a Festival in town with a fair and fireworks over the harbour. We got to bed pretty late.

 

At 7:30 a.m the next morning there was a knock on the door, which made me jump out of my skin. I was fast asleep. The hotel receptionist bellowed through the door that Heron Island were on the phone in the lobby. David heroically threw on some clothes and staggered out to take the call. A couple of minutes later, he burst through the door to tell me to get up NOW! I rolled out of bed like a bear with a sore head. No time for breakfast. Our helicopter flight was leaving from the Airport in a few minutes –  someone should have phoned us the day before – didn’t we know!? No, we didn’t know (hmmm…a pattern emerging here…!) but five minutes later we were in a taxi and on our way to the Airport. On arrival at the Airport, we were taken straight out to the helicopter and a couple of minutes later, we were in the air!

As soon as we were in the air, my bear-with-a-sore-head-mood evaporated into the clouds. It was stunning up there as we left industrial Gladstone behind and caught our first view of The Great Barrier Reef.

As we approached Heron Island, the cloud dispersed and the sun came out as we flew in low over the azure blue waters and coral islands of the Capricornia Cays.

We made our way up to the Resort, which consists of a series of low rise buildings dotted amongst the trees. Fortunately, we were just in time for breakfast! After making the most of the all-you-can-eat buffet, we headed through the trees to  check out our room. The first thing that struck me was how many birds there were. The air was thick with their cries and the path underfoot was studded with bird shit. The smell wasn’t pretty, either. The Island is a bird sanctuary with over 200,000 birds. On Heron Island you have to accept that at some stage, a bird will shit on you.

After checking out our room, we ventured down to the beach, which was a short few steps away from the room. Although the resort seemed busy, the beach was almost totally deserted. After a brief swim, we took a walk round the island, which only took twenty minutes – the beach runs the whole way round. We could see signs of life in the water – a Giant Shovel-nosed Ray and an Epaulette Shark. There’s a Research Station on the Island, and an information centre stacked with leaflets about the marine life. The wind blew up and it began to rain so we headed back to our room.

In the afternoon, the weather cleared and we headed out onto the Reef on a dive boat. It was good to put some of the skills we had learned on Bali to the test. At first I felt quite rusty but I quickly felt comfortable again and had a great time. The coral was really beautiful and there were plenty of fish. The only downside was we were diving with two other divers. One of them was a self contained and very accomplished Japanese man but the other Australian man was all over the place, flailing his hands about and bashing me with his fins, which made it hard to focus. Towards the end of the dive, David and the annoying Australian had almost run out of air and went up, so I had a few extra minutes with the Japanese man. Those few extra minutes were nice and peaceful and we were lucky enough to spot a turtle.  The island is an important nesting ground for turtles and it is currently turtle nesting season so I’m hoping it won’t be the last I see. When I surfaced from the dive, the rain was pelting down and the trip back to land was quite stormy. Fortunately, we didn’t have far to go.

In the evening, we hit the bar for a couple of beers. It was raining outside. A pair of cruise ship style entertainers were belting out the classics. After munching our way through another all-you-can-eat buffet (all-you-can-eat buffets seem to be the only food on offer on the island, except for some tired looking sandwiches at the bar and some chocolate bars in the Resort Shop) it was back to the room. I wanted to go down to the beach to see if there were any baby turtles making their way down to the sea but after our rude awakening this morning, I didn’t have the energy and was soon asleep, lulled by the sound of the waves.