We continued heading south from St Lawrence and pulled into Gladstone around lunchtime, quickly found our bearings for where we needed to catch the ferry and then just as quickly, headed out of town. Gladstone is a huge mining port town and very unattractive! Instead we camped about half an hour away on the Calliope River, which reminded me a little of camping beside the Murray, we had a campfire and then an early night. We were watching the weather keenly as we'd read reports of shockingly rough boat trips out to Heron Island and were particularly concerned about Gemma!

The next morning we packed our bags, left the car and van at a storage place on the marina, each took Kwells and nervously looked out to sea while waiting to board. Thankfully we were able to sit outside and only one hour of the two hour journey was in open ocean. It was moderately rough but we all survived with breakfast still in our tummies!

Heron Island is well worth the boat trip, it's just beautiful!! It's a classic coral cay island, all sand surrounded by reef with tropical jungle in the middle. The tiny habour where the boat pulls in an amazing introduction. The water is a perfect turquoise blue with reef sharks and rays cruising around and an old wreck lying to one side, just begging to be snorkelled around.

After a welcome drink and lunch we settled into our room. We had read much online chatter about Heron Island prior to arriving and it's true, the resort could do with a facelift but we were all very content with our new home for the next few days and loved the relaxed feel! We wandered into the dive shop to have a browse and came out having booked 3 dives each (had been planning on perhaps 1 but 3 was more economical!) Happy hour was then spent around the pool watching a gorgeous sunset with the resident black tipped reef and lemon sharks cruising by.

The kids quickly became accustomed to the routines of the island and were amazed at the concept of a buffet where they could return as many times as they wished. Neve struggled to find the balance between tasting all the desserts and overeating! The food was generally good but not great, but this is not why you come to Heron Island. Heron is home to 30 different types of birds (not as noisy at night as expected, a little smelly but not too bad and fluffy baby mutton birds everywhere), it houses a large research station and most especially, the diving and snorkelling is superb!

The wind blew up to 30 knots on our second full day so we weren't able to get in the water and feeling a little cheated, we convinced ourselves we'd better stay another night! This was a great plan as we then had time to experience all the Island had to offer. We went on guided reef walks, bird walks, research station tours, circumnavigated the island and spent lazy hours by the pool ... but mostly we just dived and snorkled!

The kids all had a go at snorkeling however Neve was the one who really loved it! One evening on dusk we were in the habour looking for the resident 2 metre groper, the water wasn't very clear and the sharks seemed to just appear in front of you but although she was nervous, Neve was still keen to swim around the boats and pier pylons looking for Gus the groper! We also did a drift along the reef and she was lucky enough to watch a turtle feeding and on the final morning she was back in the habour at sunrise with Toby and great numbers of rays and sharks. It was so great to hear Neve squealing through her snorkel!

Toby and I took turns diving so that one of us could stay with the kids. This was great to be able to tell the other what we'd seen but a shame we couldn't dive together. We both had 2 fantastic dives and 1 that was still great but not amazing - how quickly our standards had risen! The coral was in pristine condition and the fish were prolific but the highlights were the turtles. To watch them either gliding by or resting on a bommie was just magical, I'd never been so close to turtles under water. I also saw a Spanish dancer which was a first for me but the best, most amazing thing was to be 2 metres away from a manta ray!! In the last 5 minutes of my last dive we swam around a bommie and were looking at a shark around the bottom, a turtle resting on the middle and then looked up to see a manta ray resting above. It stayed perfectly still for a couple of minutes before gliding off into the blue, just stunning!!

On the last day the water was like glass which made for great diving, but also for a very smooth ride back to the mainland. We all felt sad to be leaving but as the resort was closing for 6 weeks (to do that facelift it needs) we had to go. Our housekeeper had been a lovely young Korean girl who Lachie chatted to constantly and just before we left, she found Lachie to give him a small gift of lollies which made his day! Back in Gladstone we restocked then again headed out to camp at Calliope River for one more night.