Treasure island
Fly from the Gold Coast to Lady Elliot Island on the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef and experience a marine wonderland
Peter Gash vividly remembers the first time he set foot on Lady Elliot Island. Picture it. New Year’s Day, 1981. The 21-year-old motocross racer is in a boat with some friends, and friends of friends, when they anchor off the coral cay.
Just don’t picture the verdant paradise Lady Elliot is now. This was closer to a lunar landscape. Guano miners had stripped the island bare and the goats they left behind were taking care of any green shoots that managed to poke up. Peter and a mate swam ashore but “it was like walking on broken glass”. Later that day, he went ashore on Lady Musgrave Island, 22 nautical miles to the north, which was a lot closer to his idea of a tropical paradise.
An idea formed that has driven Peter Gash ever since. Oh, and something else happened on that trip. Peter met a 16year-old scuba diver called Julie. Three years later they were married.
Lady Elliot Island today is a world away
from the moonscape that appalled Gash in 1981. It’s green, literally and figuratively. Native forests are regenerating. Planes are constantly ferrying in tourists, both resort guests and day trippers. Huts are hidden among the trees where rare birds nest. Off shore, glass-bottom boats chase manta rays while snorkellers form a conga line behind giant turtles.
Guests often include scientists studying rays, birds, whales, turtles and fish, metres from the restaurant. The atmosphere is more David Attenborough than David Hasselhoff. And that’s the way they like it.
Walking the paths, you actually have to step out of the way of the birds and their hatchlings. They don’t fly away because they’ve never had a reason to be scared of humans. And when you’re having a cold beer at the LEI bar, if you’re really quiet, you will hear the crashing of the waves and the chirping of the birds. Sometimes, snorkellers can hear the songs of migrating whales. But one thing you won’t hear is generators. When Gash took over the lease of the island in 2005, he promised to “regenerate and get rid of the generators”. He’s done it. Solar arrays line the runway and the roofs of most buildings, a massive battery bank stores the power. It runs a desalination plant that makes 30,000 litres of fresh water a day. Sewage is treated and used to irrigate the runway. Cardboard and foodscraps are mulched to create new soil. Trees are grown from seedlings in a nursery and replanted. And the birds keep pooping.
As Gash says, it’s a work in progress, but “it will get to a point where nature relies on less input from us. We’re doing the right thing for the planet”.
When the seed of the idea was planted in
his brain back in 1981, Gash knew he would need to learn to fly. For starters, it is the only reliable way to get to an island surrounded by reefs. So he became both a licenced pilot and engineer.
In 1988, he had the chance to buy the company that is now Seair at Gold Coast Airport. Not even 18.5 per cent interest rates could put him off. Luckily, Expo had sparked a Japanese tourist boom. He’d cram four Japanese tourists into a little floatplane, throw in an esky, snorkels and fins, and take off for a day at Lady Musgrave Island. And every time he flew over Lady Elliot he wondered when he’d get his chance. That chance came in 2005, with the opportunity to take over the island’s 30-year lease. The previous leaseholder said “you’ve got rocks in your head” when he told him the plan, but with co-investors Grant Kenny and Steve Irwin, the island was finally his.
He knew that, given time, he could regenerate the island. And he also saw the tourism potential of the southernmost island of the Great Barrier Reef – with its own airstrip and within easy reach of Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
A day trip to Lady Elliot is like going
from one extreme to the other. Leaving early from the Gold Coast in a Cessna Caravan or de Haviland Twin Otter, the pace of the glitter strip is left behind and you enter a different world, slower, quieter, cleaner, and awe-inspiring.
The flight itself is an experience, heading north past the Surfers Paradise highrises, the Moreton Bay Islands, Brisbane, The Glasshouse Mountains, Noosa, Rainbow Beach and then out over the Coral Sea, until this picture postcard tropical island appears, completely surrounded by reefs. At the right time of year migrating whales escort the plane.
On the ground, there’s lots to do for the day-tripper. It only takes about 40 minutes to walk around the island (but a lot longer if you stop to take a photo of every bird or turtle hatchling or starfish) and there are guided reef walks, nature trails and scuba diving for beginners and experts. But most people just want to go snorkelling. And everyone wants to see a turtle. Or the school of magnificent manta rays that are often spotted in deeper water.
You can snorkel straight off the beach, but there’s a glass-bottom boat that takes tourists to designated spots. Incredibly knowledgeable guides point out different species, will give you a yell when a turtle appears (and one will) but when your mask is on and your face is in the water, you’re in your own world. And while you’re bobbing around on the Great Barrier Reef, you realise that just a few hours ago, you were on the Gold Coast.
“You could die and go to heaven and not be happier,” Gash says.
Staying on the Gold Coast before or after
your flight to Lady Elliot is a great contrast. The coast is back in full swing after the pandemic. Take a walk down Oracle Boulevard at Broadbeach on a Friday night. It’s packed. Extra tables crowd the footpath. Panicky punters who forgot to make reservations hustle from door to door as waiters try to squeeze them in. At Social Eating House, there’s a real buzz as groups tuck into share plates of 12-hour slow cooked lamb or twicecooked pork. They are as hearty as the tuna tartare on a rice cracker is delicate.
Meanwhile, at La Luna on The Spit, it’s date night as couples dine on oysters, bugs and prawns while gazing out over the billionaires’ yachts. The coast is back, and it’s already planning for the next phase. The first stage of The Star Gold Coast redevelopment, the 53-story Dorsett Hotel, is already up and running, bringing a new level of sophistication to the precinct.
With this itinerary, you get the best of both worlds along Queensland’s coast. The writer was a guest of Destination Gold Coast