Heron Island

Apr 13

universalheadStuff 1 Comment

If you’re ever down in Australia and feel like a ‘resort holiday’, I can highly recommend Heron Island. Five nights there felt like a month’s break. I also managed to fit in six dives on the Great Barrier Reef, and the highlight was encountering two huge (at least 2.5 metres from wingtip to wingtip) manta rays, slowly circling above a coral outcrop 15 metres below the surface.

The island, at least when we were there, swarms with birds chattering away all day and all night; a bit noisy when you first arrive but you soon find the calls relaxing, and it sure beats traffic noise. Every evening we went down to the beach (a complete circuit of the tiny island takes about forty minutes) to watch baby turtles crawl out of the sand and make their desperate rush to the sea. Truly the cutest baby animals on the planet, the staff know them as ‘sea biscuits’ because of the unfortunate fact that just about every form of wildlife in the sea or flying above it loves to snack on them. Only about 1 in a 1,000 make it to adulthood. Trying to improve the odds, we would protect them from gulls and, at least for a little way into the water, small reef sharks and eels.

The city seems a mad, noisy, smelly place after a tropical island. Check out some shots on the Photos page.

PS. Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ll back in the swing of things soon.