Heron Island is a narrow spit of land about less than a kilometer in length and 300 metres across at its widest point. At a leisurely pace, you can walk along the beach in one direction and arrive back at that same point in 30 minutes. A coral cay, ringed by water of the clearest and brightest turquoise, the island sits on the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) about 65km from the Australian mainland. The only way you can get there is via ferry from Gladstone.
When the H.M.S Fly discovered the cay in 1843 while trying to navigate a way through the reef, the ship’s geologist named it ‘Heron Island’ for the number of eastern reef egrets picking over the coral at low tide, mistakenly identifying the birds. By the time anyone had recognised the mistake, the name had stuck.
The island sits at the western end of the Heron Reef, where you’ll find 60 per cent of fish species and 70 per cent of coral species found in the Great Barrier Reef. It’s this almost baffling level of biodiversity that made it the ideal place to study marine biology and, over the years, attracted giants in conservation like Sir David Attenborough and Jacques Cousteau who both counted the island as a personal favourite. It’s been a hub for global reef research since the 1930s and it’s been home to a world-leading research station since 1951, run by the University of Queensland. At any given time, the island is home to a small contingent of researchers. If you want to speak to a world authority on the reef, Heron Island is the place.
I first visited almost two decades ago to interview a coral reef expert for a magazine piece. I remember snorkelling out to the edge of the reef, soaking up the kaleidoscope of coral and tropical fish. [NB: While it’s impossible to illustrate the vibrance of the colour, I will say this: NASA included an aerial photograph of Heron Island on the Voyager Golden Record, currently rocketing through interstellar space, as visual proof of life’s diversity on Earth.] There I’d arranged to meet Dr Selina Ward at the Heron Island Research Station (HIRS). At the time, Ward was a coral reef scientist and a senior lecturer at UQ.
Dr Selina Ward had the sort of laid-back easy grace common to many Queenslanders. As she showed me around the