Monday 27 September 2021

Lady Elliott Island

Last weekend we had an adventure. We drove to Hervey Bay, and then flew to Lady Elliott Island (about 45 min) on a lovely clear Saturday morning. Lady Elliott Island lies at the Southern end of the Great Barrier Reef and is very special because it has sea birds nesting, manta rays close to shore, and turtles that inhabit the waters and visit for nesting in the summer months.

We were lucky to see many green turtles, a hawksbill turtle, manta rays, a huge sting ray, anemone fish, land hermit crabs, black-tip reef sharks and a squid! The corals and reef fishes were abundant and were very exciting for Isla and Evie to see properly for the first time. Swimming with turtles and a reef shark were highlights of the snorkelling trips. One of the turtles was relaxing in the water with it's eyes closed while lots of reef fish were cleaning it, then it woke up and swam off after they had finished. At night time, we saw cowrie snails grazing on the algae.

There were two parts of the island that we could snorkel from, one is the lagoon directly outside our unit, and the other side of the island at a  lighthouse. The manta ray cleaning station was situated at a bommie near the lighthouse area and we visited this on a glass bottom boat trip on our second day. The manta rays visit this area to be cleaned by reef fish. 

On the island, we were surrounded by nesting noddy birds and bridled terns who were unafraid of us. We found large land hermit crabs at night time walking around near our unit. It is still humpback whale migration season and we were lucky enough to see a whale breaching five or six times after one of our snorkelling adventures.














































































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