Post I: Arriving at Heron Island

In New Zealand now, but putting up the posts from the Great Barrier Reef as I have internet for now! More to come, hope you enjoy! 

Wednesday, Oct 13th: Arrived at Heron Island today! The journey here was a typical Australian travel day – long and involving many transfers. All in all to get here we took a cab, a plane, a plane, a bus, and a ferry – from start to finish around 12 hours, though there was a 2 hour layover. As we were waiting for the ferry, my mom started getting nervous about the rough seas (the ferry crosses in open water and lasts for about 2 hours.) As I was dozing off I heard my mom say it shouldn’t be too bad as she was told the swells were 1 – 2 feet today. This sounded strange but in my drowsy stupor I let it go without questioning it. On the bus to the ferry though I pulled a classic Australian move without really meaning to… If you are ever worried about anything, talking to an Australian will most likely make you feel more worried… Sharks? Yeah there hasn’t been an attack in ages, or at least a couple months … 90% of the time they will just leave you alone. Etc. It is not as if they are trying to be mean, it is always done in the friendliest way possible, but a lot of the time you just end up thinking about it more. So when my mom said the swells would only be 1-2 feet I said,

”Really? That doesn’t sound right, you sure she didn’t say meters?”

To which my mom replied, “Don’t you multiply by 5 and divide by 3?”

“Er… that’s kilometers mom. The swells will be like 7-10 feet.”

“Oh shit.”

So I guess it’s official that mom knows curse words. Luckily, but not surprisingly, all worked out well and we made it in one piece with all of our meals intact (though the lady sitting next to my mom was not as fortunate. A stoic 7 times according to mom.) I had a nice snooze outside on the top deck, while my mom stretched out down below across several chairs. The crossing was really enjoyable and it was amazing seeing the water turn bluer and bluer. 

The ferry before ours.

 Heron Island is this tiny little place in the middle of nowhere. Pretty unbelievable. Just this little speck of land in the bluest of blues. It is so remote that it runs on daylight savings time all year. Update: Here is a shot of the island from our helicopter ride leaving the island. For the rest of the helicopter sites check out my post from the last day!

 Haven’t gotten a chance to fully explore the island, but so far I love what I have seen. Right outside of our room is this nice little beach with a rock / coral wall right at the edge. 

The island is part of the Capricornia Cays National Park and as such there are all kinds of interesting birds here.

 There is this funny kind that just won’t move for you so you have to be careful about stepping on them. Apparently, there are heaps of turtles around here too. We are missing the season for laying eggs by a few weeks, but they said to keep an eye out for female turtles taking some breaks from the males on the beach. After dropping our bags in the room we went down to the beach and hopped into the water to snorkel. The water is definitely warmer here than it is back in WA. There was a roaring current so we just kind of drifted along and got out when we reached the end of the island. It was funny, literally within a minute of us entering the water a little nurse shark swam right up to us! Already booked a dive for tomorrow morning and will try to do a second one in the afternoon if it works out. Quite the start to our adventure!