Australia – Green Island

We had set our alarm for 0600 hours but both of were awake just gone 0500 hours. I actually slept fairly well, I just woke early for some reason.

The plan was to walk down to the harbour to catch a boat to Green Island for half the day. This little island is on the Great Barrier Reef and only about 12 miles away. We stopped and had breakfast before boarding a jet catamaran.

We had a swift ride out to the island which had a hotel on it and hundreds of tourists. Most of these seemed to be Chinese, who straight away hacked off my Dad when they picked up baby Buff Banded Rail. These little birds were everywhere, normally shy as a species but, here we were tripping over them.

More about the Chinese in a moment.

On this island we saw a huge flock of black Noddy’s in the she-oaks which hang over the sandy beaches. They are a kind of tern with a white head and beak. I got some video below this photo just to illustrate how many there were.

There were reef egrets both white and grey, Crested tern, White bellied and sea eagles.

Also on the beach we saw coconuts and a Nautilus shell. My dad (who was an experienced diver in the 1950’s and 60’s) had never seen one. He picked it up but, he put it down because it had the rotting Nautilus still in it, yuk!

I went for a ride in a glass bottomed boat to see a bit of the reef which was mostly soft corals around this island. I could see lots of sea cucumber (which are an animal if you didn’t know). I don’t know much about the fish but they seemed diverse and plentiful. I got a glimpse of a green turtle too. There are 7 species of turtle in these waters and it was lovely just to see one of them.

I met my Dad on the jetty and he had had a frustrating time with the Chinese who were rude and very loud. At one point he had set up the telescope on the beach looking out to sea when a whole group of them came in and stood in front of it. To add insult to injury, they photographed Dad! He packed up and moved off in disgust! He’s probably on Pinterest if you look! Maybe not, it’s probably banned in China.

The ride back was quite bumpy and we were stood at the back hanging on as we were lifted off our feet! We only sat down when we started getting wet from the spray.

Despite the crowds we had actually enjoyed our first day. As we walked back along the esplanade I went in the lagoon for a swim, very refreshing!

Then to a pub for dinner and on the way back saw big fruit bats flying overhead. These are Spectacled Flying-foxes (Pteropus conspicillatus). They are a threatened species and last year the drought killed thousands of them. They are kind of creepy flying silently overhead but also really cool!