Heron Island Travel Guide
Heron Island is beautiful coral cay, part of the world heritage listed Great Barrier Reef National Park located 72 km northeast of Gladstone. Heron Island is a well established Barrier Reef Holiday resort, with white sandy beaches, clear blue water and unparalleled diving.
Activities on Heron Island are typical of most Great Barrier Reef resorts; visitors can enjoy bushwalking, snorkelling on the reef, playing tennis on the resort's courts, enjoying boat trips out across the reef, bird watching, whale watching between June and October and enjoying the vast expanses of white sand beaches.
Heron Island is also renowned for its world classdiving diving. The deep sea channel between Heron Island and Wistari reef gives divers the ability to explore the edge of the cay while remaining in calm waters.
Heron is renowned for its abundance of birdlife with dense Pisonia forests which are home to thousands of Noddy Terns. Because of the rich ecological diversity, Heron Island also serves as the headquarters for a University of Queensland marine geology survey and research team.
It is possible to reach the island by a short, and spectacular, helicopter flight from Gladstone. There is also a two hour fast catamaran trip.
Things to Do:
Reef Walking
- Join a guided reef walk to learn more about the unique ecology of the Great Barrier Reef. This involves looking at clams, coral formations, beche de mer and marvelling at the richness and variety of reef life.
Snorkelling and Diving
- The Island boasts 21 recognised dive sites and has been nominated as one of the world's premier dive destinations. It is common to see turtles, reef sharks, schools of smaller fish, forests of staghorn coral and other undersea wonders.
Birdwatching
- The Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service have brochures on the birds which inhabit and nest on the island. At nesting time the island smells of guano and there are literally tens of thousands of terns and shearwaters on the cay.
Turtle Watching and Whale Watching
- From December to April thousands of turtles use Heron Island as a breeding ground. The winter months see large numbers of whales passing through the channel between the cay and Wistari reef.