Brisbane Camera Group

BCG member Cynthia O'Gorman provides us with a glimpse of paradise, and shares fantasitic photographs, in her article on the wonders of Lady Elliot Island.

The Biblical description of Paradise is where diverse creatures are unafraid and this aptly describes Lady Elliot Island; birds – maybe 150,000 of them – ignore you when you walk to within half a metre of their nest and say, “smile please!”

Do you like birds, fish, turtles, sharks and manta rays? Barrier reef coral and scenery? Do you like REALLY getting away from it all? I count myself privileged to have recently spent a week on Lady Elliot, the 15th time I have visited such an island.

Just north of Fraser Island, Lady Elliot Island is the southernmost point of the Great Barrier Reef, and the island and atoll are a true jewel in the middle of dark blue ocean.

Lady Elliot Island is barely half a kilometre across. There are no rocks or creeks no hills, valleys or headlands, just sand, coral rubble and trees, and birds – lots of birds!

The island is a nesting site for black and brown noddies, bridled terns, red-tailed tropic birds, crested terns, ruddy turnstones and buff-banded rails, and is visited by many more species as well.

Loggerhead and green turtles lay eggs on the beach in summer and you are certain to meet them when snorkelling in the lagoon. Six months later the hatchlings bubble up from the sand and race ‘hell for leather’ down to the water.

Image below left: Tern chick | Image below right: Tropic bird chick

The main entertainment is snorkelling over the reef or diving within it. But even non-swimmers can walk in ankle deep water at low tide and photograph coral, clams, urchins, starfish and much, much, more. And of course, you can be kept busy recording every bird and chick within sight! Add to this the non-existence of traffic, telephones and TV – Heaven indeed.

There are glorious tropical sunsets and pastel dawns. The bridled terns stash their chicks under your front steps or join you on the verandah rail for happy hour. The mutton birds sing love songs under the cabin all night – a cross between doves cooing, dingoes howling and cats fighting. With noddy chicks squeaking, the adults squawking, and the rumble of the surf on the reef edge, it is never ever quiet.

Until you have come eye to eye with a turtle as big as your kitchen table, discovered a black-tipped reef shark dozing under a coral ledge, floated with a metre-long estuarine cod, sported with a manta ray, or been surrounded by a million tiny fish like blue and green flashing opals, you really haven’t lived.

I saw the frigate birds with their nine foot wing spans floating on the north wind, never moving a feather all day. Just what are they DOING up there? Maybe they do it because they can – wouldn’t you?

Image below left: Black noddy and chick | Image below right: Brown noddy and chick

Text and images copyright Cynthia O'Gorman

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