HERON ISLAND (Day 4-6)

HERON ISLAND

Heron Island is about 2 hours from the mainland at the south end of the Great Barrier Reef. It's part of a string of islands that just barely poke out of the water. 


It's only about half a mile long by less than a quarter mile wide, and very isolated. The only things on the island are the resort and a small research station.


On the boat heading to Heron Island. Note to self: Don't forget to take Dramamine. It's a long 2 hour trip. We got a little nauseous but we made it without any real problems. 

Here we go!!

Goodbye Gladstone

The Great Barrier Reef.

First Glimpses of Heron Island.

Old Shipwreck marks the entrance through the Reef. The story goes that this ship sank off the coast of Gladstone in the 1920s, and the guy who owned the island back then bought the wrecked hull for $10 and had it floated it out to his island so that when his friends came to visit they had a place to tie up their boats. 


This same gentleman had a few too many and disappeared between the shipwreck and the beach after a night of (heavy) drinking. It's literally less than 500 feet from the shipwreck to the beach, it's hard to imagine someone getting lost in that distance, but so the story goes. 

Dallas thought it was really cool so there are lots of pictures
:-)

Heron island is a national park, so they give you lots of stern warnings not to take anything from the island (i.e. coral), but what they don't tell you is that this nice channel through the coral was dug using dynamite so they can get their boat closer to the beach. Not very conservation-y if you ask me. 

THE REEF

First glimpse of the island

Island Walk
Heron island is very isolated, so pretty much the biggest animals on the island are birds, who have no natural predators (except for the trees, but we'll get to that later).

Walking through the center of the island had a very tropical feel to it. Everything is very lush and green, and we had a tour guide telling us all about the different trees and how the island "matures." One species of tree can actually trap and kill birds with its sticky leaves, making it the only thing (besides people and other birds) that kill birds on the island. 

Moral of the story: pretty much everything in Australia is dangerous. Even the trees have figured out a way to be deadly. 

Bird's nest. 

One of the most amazing things we saw while we were there was newly hatched turtles walking down the beach.  According to the hotel staff (who all have 4 year degrees in marine biology), turtle season is officially over, so there was a pretty small chance that we'd see any hatchlings. 


Well we were walking along the beach at sundown and almost stepped on them! When we looked down we saw dozens of little turtles trying to get to the ocean without being eaten by Seagulls, Sharks, Etc... The average nest size is 120 eggs, and on average, less than 1 turtle per nest makes it to adulthood. 

Go dude go!

Here is a picture of the shark waiting for them just beyond the rocks.

Hanging out on the beach. (Not sure how to rotate the picture)

The beach and island is made up of little tiny pieces of coral that have broken off of the Reef surrounding the island by the tide.

A huge section of the beach gets exposed at low tide, you can walk for almost half a mile and still be in less than 2 feet of water at low tide. 

I apologize in the number of photos but it was absolutely amazing and I want to share it with you.

Sunset on the first night. Jealous yet?

The wooden structure is called a gantry. We think it looked more  like a gallows, especially like the one in Pirates of the Caribbean, so that's what we called it the entire time we were there.  

The view from our room.

Getting to the Beach from our Room.

Looking for more turtles... All we found was a bald guy with a dirty shirt. 

And... the Sunrise.

Dallas going Snorkeling in the water..brrr. Natalie went snorkeling too, but someone had to take pictures! We bought an underwater camera, but we haven't developed the pictures yet. 

We saw tons of really big fish! At high tide, the reef is only about 3-4 feet below the surface, but there were tons of fish that come right up to the beach. Natalie was swimming in a school of foot-long bright silver fish. 

We really wanted to go snorkeling along the edge of the the reef on a boat but they cancelled due to the windy seas or "angry seas."  We thought it was pretty funny.

Another photo opportunity with the shipwreck!

This is the bird Heron Island is named after, which as it turns out, isn't a Heron at all. It's actually an Egret, and herons don't typically come to Heron Island (though to be fair, we did see one or two while we were there). 

 Beach pics

Dallas eating Kangaroo. 





Seafood Curry...Yum!



The 'Cheeky' birds who found their way into the restaurant every night.  They were very good at trying to steal your food. If you got up for more than a minute they were up on the table drinking out of your glass and stealing your crackers. 



 Picnic before leaving the Island.

If you ask for a lemonade in Australia, this is what they give you. Not what we were expecting. 

The turtle-eating reef shark came to say goodbye.

Last views of the island, and the boat to take us away. 

Bye island :(

Goodbye Heron Island




Getting a little seasick.