Lizard Island
A national park with twenty-four beaches, one lodge on it, and the outer reef an hour away.
Lizard Island lies on the northern Great Barrier Reef, an hour by air from Cairns and well north of the main tourist reef. The island is a national park of about a thousand hectares with twenty-four beaches, and the lodge is the only accommodation on it. An Australian Museum research station operates separately at one end — scientists, not guests — which makes this a shared island in the strict sense used in this register.
Forty rooms and villas are run all-inclusive, with a dive operation reaching the Cod Hole and the outer reef, and The Pavilion as a separate private villa. Guests take a dinghy out unaccompanied to their own beach for the day — a practice few reef properties permit. The lodge closed after cyclone damage in the past and rebuilt; the reef in front of it has been through bleaching events and is monitored by the research station.
A dinghy and a beach of your own. Guests are given a boat and a picnic and left to it. On the Great Barrier Reef that independence is close to unique.
Science on the same island. The research station's presence means the reef here is among the most closely studied in Australia, and the lodge's dive briefings reflect it.
Who it is not for
Lizard Island is wrong for guests wanting a warm shallow lagoon — this is open reef water with current and wind. It is wrong for travellers who need a short journey, since Cairns is already remote and the island is an hour beyond it. And it is wrong for anyone expecting a resort's evening life: dinner and the stars are the programme. Those wanting the reef with more around them should look at Hayman.
Sources
- lizardisland.com.au — forty rooms and villas, twenty-four beaches, all-inclusive
- Australian Museum — Lizard Island Research Station operates on the island
- Island area and current dive operations unverified. Confirm before publication.
Booking
Private Island Resorts arranges each stay on request, quoting the rates available for the island and dates. No benefit should be assumed unless it is confirmed in writing for the individual reservation.
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