Your fast guide to island hopping
and tents with beds. There are no pumpkins on Pumpkin Island. What you will find is an island shaped like a pumpkin ( not a Halloweentype pumpkin but a butternut pumpkin). And plenty of peace.
Catch a water taxi from Great Keppel Island and you can be on Pumpkin Island 20 minutes later.
Home to five cottages and two bungalows, you can rent this entire island for $ 2220 a night. If that’s not enough to tempt you, the fact it’s the Great Barrier Reef ’s only resort that is completely off the grid, may.
Measuring just 450m long and 150m wide, this is an idyllic island to explore. Done with the land, grab a snorkel and navigate the pristine coral off the island, where you’ll swim with fabulous fish and turtles. If catching a boat called the Pumpkin Express back to the mainland doesn’t scream Southern Great Barrier Reef, how about a fire truck- red helicopter over blue ribbons of reef ?
This is one case when the trip from Gladstone, a twohour drive from Rockhampton, is as delicious as the destination itself.
Marine Helicopters will take you and your luggage on a 20minute ride that soars over dolphins, turtles, sharks, migrating humpback whales and even big yellow sea snakes.
Land at Heron Island, which boasts nine different room types, a restaurant, bar and day spa. There’s also 21 different dive and snorkel sites, not to mention the 200,000 birds that can be found here during summer. Take a semi- submersible tour of the reef, or join a guide at low tide and learn about all of the magical marine life here.
You can also book tours of Heron Island Research Station, the largest and longest established coral reef study facility on the Great Barrier Reef. Australia By Seaplane lands right on the beach at Heron, ready to whisk you across more spectacular reef to Lady Musgrave Island, where 15m yacht Advance II awaits. Land in the lagoon ready to participate in this sleep- on- the- reef adventure.
Launched by Lady Musgrave Experience, which operates day tours to this outer reef, Advance II can take up to eight guests overnight. Once the day tours leave, whiz over to Lady Musgrave Island for sunset and, on dark, you can even dive with the mantas. Be rocked to sleep by the sway of the boat, rise early, and be dropped at some of the most sensational snorkelling spots along the Southern Great Barrier Reef.