We left Bargara for Gladstone, three hours north, where we
caught the ferry, a 34-m (112-ft) catamaran, for Heron Island on the Great
Barrier Reef. We were going to spend a week at the Delaware North resort (link). Heron Island is in the Capricorn-Bunker Group of islands in the southern
part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. They form the Capricornia Cay
National Park, so named because the 15 islands straddle the Tropic of Capricorn
where temperate and tropical waters meet. From a distance, Heron Island is a
small (0.29 square kilometers, 0.11 square miles), undistinguished, sand cay (key)
covered with vegetation, but it sits on the leeward edge of a thriving 27
square kilometers (10 square miles) coral reef platform.
 |
| Approaching Heron Island |
