Life on Lizard

February 23rd, 2005 at 12:00am

Life on Lizard Island continues. I am on a day off today. Guests often ask what we do on our days off here. Last week I went on the boat to the Outer Reef for the day. I did 2 dives – one of which was at the famous Cod Hole. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday, huh? Today I went over to the Research Station. I’ve got a new part-time job cleaning the caretaker’s house over there. It’s a great way to make some extra cash and also a chance to meet some different people. Every 2 weeks I’ll be going over there to clean for 4 hours. Luckily they pick me up and drop me back off when I’m done; otherwise I’d have to walk 2km each way! That was my morning today; in the afternoon I went to the beach and went snorkeling for an hour. It was raining a bit today, but it doesn’t matter when you are already in the water. I saw lots of good stuff, including a school of 15 unicorn fish, 3 boxfish, a blue-spotted stingray, a juvenile batfish, and a Maori wrasse.

After my last entry, I got a few comments about the island. I should repeat that the resort here is 5-star, so my job in housekeeping doesn’t involve cleaning up after drunken teenagers trashing rooms. I only clean up after drunken millionaires and their wives! No, it really hasn’t been that bad cleaning the rooms, although it is physically hard work, and the tropical heat can be a bit much at times. Mostly the guests are very neat and tidy. One thing that is very different here from the mainland is that none of the rooms are locked with keys. Why bother? We are the only resort on the island and the only way to leave is by plane. Even the staff rooms are unlocked. It’s nice not to have to carry any keys around, or worry about losing keys. Of course the guests can lock the door once they are inside for privacy, but we don’t lock the rooms when they are not there. It takes some getting used to for our guests from big cities. Usually on their first night here, they will accidentally lock themselves out and then we have to dig the keys out of the office to get them back in.

All of the electricity on the island comes from generators. We have a tower for the phone lines, but every time it rains it seems as if the phones go out. (Last Christmas it rained and none of the staff were able to call their families!) There no also no televisions in the guest rooms. Luckily the island has fresh water on it, and so we are able to get our water from a well. Every 2 weeks we have a barge that comes from Cairns with food, fuel, and supplies. The same barge carries all of our food waste and rubbish back to the mainland.
What else? That’s all I can think of at the moment.

Chinamans Ridge at sunset

Black tip reef shark

Trawler Beach, one of 24 beaches on the island

Entry Filed under: Australia,Diving,Lizard Island