After the journey from hell simply because it took 28 hours traveling from: Cambodia - Bangkok - Sydney - Brisbane - Gladstone, we arrived. We stayed in the town of Gladstone (Queensland) for one night before the catamaran trip to Heron island. Gladstone in a quiet town and we managed to stay up long enough to see some of the Friday night nightlife in one of the pubs on the high street.
The next morning it was raining and it would continue to do so for our visit in QLD, Oz is having the wettest summer in many years - bugger! The 2 hour boat trip made me very ill, it was quite rough and several of my fellow passengers were also enjoying the view of the inside of a paper bag - I wished I was back on the 28 hour trip from Cambodia.
The small island is part of a national park which attracts sea turtles to lay their eggs on its beaches - this and the reef were the reason for our 4 night visit. The resort it self was a little like Hi Di Hi mixed with fawlty Towers as many of the facilities were not available for unknown reasons, most of this did not matter with the exception of the semi-sub which is a good way of seeing the reef usually only seen by people who can scuba dive - this was a big disappointment. For the next 4 days we spent our time exploring the reef, looking for turtles and relaxing (but not in the sun). At low tide you can walk around the reef and on our first trip we went with a guide who explained not to pick up shells that looked like the one she was holding as it contained something that paralyze you and some one would have to breath for you until it wore off, right we thought, don't touch red cone shaped shells about 10cm long, but on further questioning the guide explained the shells can be any size and colour..... We decided not to touch anything and always wear shoes in the sea to avoid the Stone Fish which is much the same but more painful and looks like a stone.
The reef is amazing with vast array of life around the coral, we even had sharks swimming around us when we went snorkeling. The real treat was the turtles, after many early mornings and lots of tripping over on the beach in the complete darkness at night we watched a turtle come ashore and dig its "nest" and lay her eggs (120 of them). On another occasion we saw baby turtles climbing out of there nest, they were being helped by one of the researchers so it was not completely natural but it was good enough for us. After 4 days on the island we returned to Gladstone for one night before heading off to Sydney, I'm please to say the return boat trip was much calmer.
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