In December 1991, Stan and I went on a 25-day trip to Papua New Guinea (PNG). On the way, we stopped off at Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef off Australia for three days of snorkeling.
I had snorkeled at the Great Barrier Reef once before when I was in Australia on a two-week business trip in 1988, but not on Lizard Island. Stan had not been to the Great Barrier Reef before.
Lizard Island
Lizard Island is a granite island about 160 square miles in size, with three smaller islands nearby. Together these islands form the Lizard Island Group and their well-developed fringing reef encircles the 33' deep Blue Lagoon.
The name Lizard Island was given to it by Lieutenant James Cook (later promoted to Captain Cook) when he passed it on 12 August 1770. He commented, "The only land Animals we saw here were Lizards, and these seem'd to be pretty Plenty, which occasioned my naming the Island Lizard Island." Cook climbed the peak on Lizard Island to chart a course out to sea through the maze of reefs which confronted him and the island's summit has since been called Cook's Look.
By the 1860s, the island was being used by sea cucumber fishermen who found that the waters contained substantial quantities of the creature which was a popular delicacy in Asia.
Trip Diary
The following pages consist of my diary that I wrote from December 15, 1991, to December 20, 1992. These six days cover our travel days to Lizard Island as well as the three days we spent there. I have added photos taken mainly by Stan – I was usually busy shooting video. I have also added supplemental material on places that we visited that I included in our photo albums.
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Sunday, 12/15/91 – Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia
9:56 pm – Left Los Angeles on United Airlines to Sydney, Australia.
Tuesday, 12/17/91 – Sydney to Cairns, Australia
7:20 am – Arrived in Sydney.
9:10 am – Left Sydney via Australian Airlines to Cairns.
12:05 pm – Arrived in Cairns, Australia; took taxi to Cairns Hilton Hotel on Wharf Street. Had lunch on take-out food at the mall on the pier near the hotel. Walked all over downtown Cairns; we each bought a T-shirt and Stan got two pairs of shorts.
Wednesday a.m., 12/18/91 – Cairns to Kuranda, Australia
Kuranda is a picturesque mountain village 15 miles northwest of Cairns, in Queensland, on Australia's northeast coast. It is known for the Kuranda Scenic Railway, which winds along forested hillside tracks carved out by early settlers. Kuranda is surrounded by the world’s oldest living tropical rainforest.
8:30 am – Had breakfast in the hotel and took the hundred-year-old train on an hour ride to Kuranda in the Tablelands for a morning tour; visited outdoor markets and shops; saw two people bungee jumping from a large crane.
Top left: View of a waterfall across the canyon from the train.
Top right: Looking back at train cars behind us on a sharp mountain curve.
Lower left: The Kuranda train station as our train approaches it.
Lower right: The Kuranda train station seen from our train window.
Top left: A long wall of tall manual switches at the Kuranda train station used to switch train tracks.
Top right: A pub in Kuranda.
Lower left: A homemade bicycle in Kuranda.
Middle right: A grocery store in Kuranda which also sells tee shirts.
Lower right: A woman walking on a Kuranda street.
Two people bungee jumping from a large crane in Kuranda.
12:30 pm – We were picked up by limousine in Kuranda and transported to Cairns airport for flight to Lizard Island (a 30-minute drive).
View on the limousine drive from Kuranda to Cairns.
Wednesday p.m., 12/18/91 – Cairns to Lizard Island, Australia
1:45 pm – Left Cairns for Lizard Island on Australian Airlines.
2:45 pm – Arrived at Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef on a dirt airstrip; met by staff from Lizard Island Lodge and driven two minutes to the lodge; given a beautiful lunch on veranda (fruit drink, lox croissant sandwiches, fruit & pastries) looking out over water, then shown to our room.
The room was one-half of a bungalow with a porch overlooking the water. It was large and comfortable and the bathroom had marble tile floors and shower.
Upper left: Barbara on the flight from Cairns to Lizard Island.
Upper middle: Window view on flight from Cairns to Lizard Island.
Lower right: Barbara eating a beautiful lunch on the veranda at The Lodge on Lizard Island.
Upper right: Outside our bungalow.
Lower middle View of the ocean from our bungalow.
Lower right: View of the ocean from our bungalow
The charge included meals and access to most activities and equipment at no additional cost (e.g., fins, dories with motors, catamarans, windsurfers and water skiing); there was an additional charge for scuba diving or large boat trips to other parts of the Great Barrier Reef.
5:00 pm – We were driven to the opposite side of the island to go snorkeling – normally the snorkeling is done from The Lodge right in front of the rooms, but the wind was coming from the wrong direction and the water was quite choppy on the lodge side of the island. We didn’t take our cameras on this snorkeling trip.
6:30 pm – Management cocktail party on the patio off of the veranda where we met most of the other 30 guests.
7:30 pm – Gourmet dinner on the veranda.
Thursday, 12/19/91 – Lizard Island, Australia
6:00 am – Took some early pictures of the beach and birds at dawn.
Early morning beach scenes below The Lodge on Lizard Island.
7:00 am – Breakfast on the veranda.
8:54 am – Left in minivans for the other side of the island to board the boat to snorkel the Inner Reef. The boat trip was smooth and lasted about 45 minutes. We snorkeled for one hour with the video camera. The snorkeling was not as good on the inner reef as Barbara had remembered it on the outer reef in 1988. We returned to the lodge at 11:30 am.
Top: On our inflatable boat looking out at the Inner Reef.
Bottom: Offshore in the Blue Lagoon on the Inner Reef.
12:30 pm – Lunch on the veranda.
1:30 pm – Planned to go snorkeling using motorized dory, but a big storm hit with wind and rain; got wet getting to our room; read in our room until ran stopped.
6:30 pm – Went for a walk northeast over the high hill called Chinaman’s Ridge to Mrs. Watson’s Beach.* Saw the remainder of Mrs. Watson’s stone hut.
* Mrs. Watson’s Beach is named after the woman who lived on this beach in 1881. Her fascinating story follows the photo collage.
Top left: Barbara near the top of Chinaman's Ridge, looking back at The Lodge.
Top right: Mrs. Watson's Beach seen from the top of Chinaman's Ridge.
Bottom left: Stan on Mrs. Watson's Beach; Chinaman's Ridge is in the background.
Bottom right: The remainder of Mrs. Watson's cottage from the 1880's.
Friday a.m., 12/20/91 – Lizard Island
7:00 am – Large breakfast on veranda; as we were finishing breakfast, a squall broke and we had some hard rain for a half of an hour, which delayed our departure for snorkeling.
9:00 am – Stan & I took a motorized dory to the northern end of the island to snorkel. First we went to Mermaid Cove where many monitor lizards are reported to live (about a 20-minute boat ride). The cook provided us with a huge plate of filet mignon to entice them to come out. (Barbara read a book that red meat will tempt them out of their hiding.) We are told that the monitor lizards grow to six feet in length here, and are what Lizard Island owes its name to.
Top: Stan at the helm of our dory on the way to Mermaid Cove.
Bottom: Barbara on the beach at Mermaid Cove.
We anchored our dory in the beach sand. We walked to one end of the beach, put out half of the meat on the rocks and sand, and waited five minutes to no avail.
When we returned to the dory, it was nearly beached as the tide was going out. It was too heavy for us to move at all if it were further out of the water. We still couldn’t get it back into the ocean until Stan finally carried the anchor into deeper water and that worked. Far better than waiting all day for the tide to come back in!
We went snorkeling from the beach for 45 minutes. The water didn’t get really deep. We took a lot of videos, particularly of the bright blue starfish and some medium-sized clams.
When we returned from snorkeling, the meat was still there where we had left it. We threw the remaining half of the meat on the beach and tried to start the boat engine. It took several tries before it started, which caused us some concern that we would be stranded there all day and miss our plane back to Cairns. It finally started and we left for Mrs. Watson’s Beach to do more snorkeling (about a 10-minute boat ride away). This beach was supposed to have giant clams on the northern shore. We bypassed Turtle Beach since we didn’t have time to stop at all three beaches.
10:00 am – Snorkeling at Mrs. Watson’s Beach. The first anchoring attempt was over coral, so we moved the boat and succeeded the second time. We snorkeled for a half hour and found some clams, but not as large as we had been hoping for. (Barbara had seen really giant ones on her previous trip to the reef in 1988.) We returned to the lodge at 11:30 am.
We thought about doing some more snorkeling off of the beach by the lodge, but decided to first check the results of our underwater video camera which had been acting up on us on the day before. The Mermaid Cove videos were not good, but the camera suddenly cleared up on the video of Mrs. Watson’s Beach. By this time, we no longer felt like going back out, and anyway, it was time to shower for lunch.
1:30 pm – Lunch on the veranda.
Friday p.m., 12/20/91 – Lizard Island to Cairns, Australia
3:05 pm – Left Lizard Island for Cairns via Australia Airlines; it was a nice day to do some more videoing of the reef from the air.
4:05 pm – Arrived at Cairns and took a taxi to the Cairns Hilton Hotel. The hotel put us in an executive room with access to the lounge for free drinks and hors d’oeuvres, which we enjoyed along with a couple of games of chess. Took a nap in the room.
Left: View of the Great Barrier Reef from our flight from Lizard Island to Cairns.
Right: Barbara looking out over Cairns from our hotel room.
7:00 pm – Took a walk to the shopping center at the pier and took pictures of the fish in the huge aquarium in the mall. (Stan said that we had to take these video shots – they would fool most of the people watching them into thinking that we took them underwater.) Then we took a long, fast walk along the beach front at Cairns, not getting back until 8:50 pm. The lounge closed at 9:00 so we didn’t bother going up; decided to skip dinner and had a few pieces of dried fruit and tea in the room instead, while watching a movie.
Friday p.m., 12/20/91 – Lizard Island to Cairns, Australia
3:05 pm – Left Lizard Island for Cairns via Australia Airlines; it was a nice day to do some more videoing of the reef from the air.
4:05 pm – Arrived at Cairns and took a taxi to the Cairns Hilton Hotel. The hotel put us in an executive room with access to the lounge for free drinks and hors d’oeuvres, which we enjoyed along with a couple of games of chess. Took a nap in the room.
7:00 pm – Took a walk to the shopping center at the pier and took pictures of the fish in the huge aquarium in the mall. (Stan said that we had to take these video shots – they would fool most of the people watching them into thinking that we took them underwater.) Then we took a long, fast walk along the beach front at Cairns, not getting back until 8:50 pm. The lounge closed at 9:00 so we didn’t bother going up; decided to skip dinner and had a few pieces of dried fruit and tea in the room instead, while watching a movie.
Saturday, 12/21/91 – Cairns to Papua New Guinea
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Epilogue
Our three-day stopover on Lizard Island was a thoroughly enjoying snorkeling adventure. It was also a good time for us to get over the jet lag from our long flight from Los Angeles to Australia in preparation for Papua New Guinea.
If you didn't see any photos of us snorkeling, it is because we must have been too busy doing so to take any.
Postscript
Read my missive on our Papua New Guinea (PNG) adventures for the following two weeks of our trip. Papua New Guinea is our second most favorite adventure touring destination after our three trips to Africa. In PNG, the people were the most interesting things to see, rather than the animals in Africa. Parts of Papua New Guinea were like going back in time to the Stone Age where the people didn't even have the wheel!
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