Lady Elliot Island: Eco Resort in Green Zone of Great Barrier Reef

Summary: Lady Elliot Island, southernmost cay in Australia's Great Barrier Reef, features an eco resort. The Green Zone cay protects abundant wildlife.

image of coral reef near Lady Elliot Island, taken using Seaview SVII camera: Underwater Earth/Catlin Seaview Survey, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Owned by the Commonwealth of Australia, Lady Elliot Island is leased from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority for the operation of Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort. Established in 1984, the Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort is currently co-managed by aviation businessman Peter Gash, Ironman and Olympian Grant Kenny, and Gold Coast commercial lawyer Michael Kyle.

Conservation is a key concept for the eco-friendly, low-key, 41-room resort.

The resort earnestly strives to achieve its goal of providing genuine, minimal-impact eco-tourism experiences via enriching encounters, above and below water, with nature. Popular activities include reef walking, scuba diving, and snorkeling.

Designated as a Green Zone of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, Lady Elliot Island teems with wildlife. Lady Elliot Island especially is a breeding area for buff-banded rails (Gaillirallus philippensis); green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas); humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae); loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta); and manta rays (Manta spp.).

Officially discovered in 1816 by Captain Thomas Stuart while in transit from Calcutta to Sydney, the cay was named after the captain’s Kolkata (Calcutta)-built cargo ship, Lady Elliot. The ship's namesake was Margaret Jones, Lady Elliot (ca. 1772–March 2, 1819), wife of Hugh Elliot (April 6, 1752–Dec. 1, 1830), Colonial Governor of Madras from Sept. 16, 1814 to 1820.

Conservationist and Seabird Aviation founder Don Adams built the cay’s airstrip for the Commonwealth Department of Transport in 1969 in exchange for establishing tourist accommodations and revegetating the desolate cay with native trees, such as casuarina (Casuarina spp.), coconut (Cocos nucifera) and pandanus (Pandanus spp.).

Extreme guano mining for a decade from 1863 to 1873 and again from 1894 to 1900 stripped more than 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) of top soil and guano and also virtually deforested the cay. Goats, brought in with chickens for lighthouse keepers, devastated vegetation until all remaining ruminants were killed in 1961.

Lady Elliot Island is located at the southernmost tip of the world’s largest coral reef system, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981.

Sited 46 nautical miles (53 miles; 85 kilometers) northeast of southeastern Queensland’s river city of Bundaberg, Lady Elliot Island belongs to the Capricorn and Bunker Groups of 16 coral cays and 22 reefs straddling the Tropic of Capricorn.

As a coral cay, Lady Elliot Island comprises a small island with low elevation sited atop a coral reef. Lady Elliot Island’s specific formation as a vegetated shingle cay derives from a sandy platform of coral rubble consisting of shingle, i.e., broken fragments of clamshells (Tridacna spp.) and coral (primarily Acropora spp.).

Nearly concentric shingle ridges rise over the cay’s tiny area of 45 hectares (0. 17 sq. mi.; 0.45 sq. km) to an average height of 14.7 feet (4.5 meters). Shingles are bound together by cay rock, a phosphate-based cement formed from bird droppings, known as guano.

The beach rimming Lady Elliot Island bedazzles with a composition of gravel and shingle with white sand. A small spit punctuates the central eastern coast of the oval-shaped cay.

Contact details for day trips and overnight stays:
fax: +61 7 4156 4400
phone: +61 7 4156 4444
website: www.ladyelliot.com.au

aerial view of Queensland's Lady Elliot Island, with two lighthouses (center left): Lord DimWit at English Wikipedia. Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

image of coral reef near Lady Elliot Island, taken using Seaview SVII camera: Underwater Earth/Catlin Seaview Survey, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lady_Elliot_Island_SVII.jpg

aerial view of Queensland's Lady Elliot Island, with two lighthouses (center left): Lord DimWit at English Wikipedia. Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lady_Elliot_Island.jpg

For further information:

"Lady Elliot Island and Reef."Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority > Zoning, Permits and Plans > Site-Specific Management.
Available @ http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/zoning-permits-and-plans/site-specific-management/lady-elliot-island-and-reef

"Lady Elliot Island Lighthouse: 1st Queensland Iron Plated Timber Light." Earth and Space News. Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/09/lady-elliot-island-lighthouse-1st.html

looking4thebroc. "Lady Elliot Island Earthcache." Geocaching. 9/6/2013.
Available @ http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC48P5V_lady-elliot-island-earthcache?guid=7a818c9d-8ade-4137-9166-ec6019b399f1

Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage. "Lady Elliot Island and Reef." Park Guide: Lady Elliot Island and Reef. BP486 (May 1990).
Available @ http://people.hws.edu/mitchell/oz/guides/leiinfo.html

Rawlings-Way, Charles; Meg Worby; Tamara Sheward. Queensland & the Great Barrier Reef. Lonely Planet Guidebooks. Footscray, Victoria, Australia; Oakland CA; London UK: Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd., 2014.