A Southern Great Barrier Reef escape with Lincoln Lewis
That holiday feeling starts in Queensland
Updated
Where the reef glows, silence is golden, and two people remember how to breathe.
Most 90s kids ignored whatever their parents told them. Not Lincoln Lewis. The proud Queenslander grew up hearing his mum say daily that they lived in ‘the most incredible state in the most incredible country in the world’.
He believed it then and he believes it now.
Find that holiday feeling at Lady Musgrave Island, where the reef glows and good times flow. Supplied
So, when his partner Emmi Schmidt, who runs surf camps in South Africa, rides horses bareback in Morocco and once spent six months mustering cattle in central Queensland, touched down in Australia after a gruelling 52-hour journey, Lewis knew exactly where he wanted to take her.
Not just somewhere beautiful. Somewhere that still leaves a born-and-bred Queenslander speechless. “Whenever I get to tell someone about my own backyard, I light up,” he says. “But when it’s someone that close to your heart seeing it for the first time, that’s something else.”
Same ritual, different world
Lewis is a creature of holiday habit. Wherever he lands, he unpacks, claims his space and exhales. This signals when his holiday truly begins. “Even if I’m only 30 minutes from home, it signals that I’m in my own time,” he says. “You feel free. Relaxed.”
“As a kid, we holidayed in Queensland. K’gari (formerly Fraser Island), Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, Port Douglas, Cairns… living here, every day feels like a holiday because of the natural beauty this place has.”
The Australia I wanted to show her
Their journey began at Lady Musgrave Island, a coral cay on the Southern Great Barrier Reef just two-hours boat ride from Bundaberg. Visitors can camp on the island, or indulge in the Lady Musgrave Experience, an award-winning experience where guests sleep on a pontoon moored directly on the reef, open to the sky. Few people know it exists. Those who do never forget it.
By day, Lewis and Emmi snorkelled through coral gardens alongside turtles, spotted manta rays cruising through the deep and explored the reef.
Lincoln got up-close and personal with the locals. Supplied
A drop in the ocean, a sky full of stars
As the sun set and the day-trippers departed, the reef revealed a different kind of magic. “Picture this,” Lewis says. “Tiny hatchlings scrambling down the sand, racing for the ocean for the very first time. And just metres away, the expecting mums hauling themselves up the beach to nest. The whole cycle, right there in front of you, all at once.”
Back on the pontoon, the only interruptions were the soft lap of water against the hull and distant birds. “You don’t even think to look at your phone,” he says. “The sky is so clear it’s like someone’s gotten paint and just flicked it at the sky. No light pollution, no pollution at all. You’ve disconnected from everything so that you can reconnect.”
Just the three of us
From Lady Musgrave they took a boat to Lady Elliot Island, Emmi filming everything. They stayed in a beachfront glamping tent at Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort, with the water steps away.
The defining moment came just after sunrise, when Lewis and Emmi swam in the lagoon and had it entirely to themselves for close to two hours. Visibility beyond 30 metres, the water an almost unreal glowing blue, turtles cruising past at arm’s length. “Half the time they’re so curious they’ll come right up to you,” Lewis says.
A romantic getaway for the history books. Supplied
Emmi was transfixed. “I had a staredown with a turtle,” she laughs. Lewis was squeezing her hand so hard she’d remember it long after the trip ended. “I reckon I gave her a sore hand,” he laughs. “I don’t know how else to describe it other than pure elation.” It’s a feeling, he says, that doesn’t fade. “Whenever you think about it, it just floods you with that feeling again.”
How lucky are we?
At sunset, sitting on the beach after only day one, Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort staff delivered cheese, biscuits and a bucket of fresh prawns. Lewis and Emmi settled into banana chairs, champagne in hand, and watched the sky turn orange, then pink, then purple. “You’re sitting there knowing people on the other side of the world dream about getting here one day,” Lewis says, “and we’re watching the sun go down after swimming with turtles, watching the dolphins feeding, knowing we’ll do it all again tomorrow. You just feel so lucky.”
His mum was right all along.
Turtle nesting and hatching season: November to April. From June to November, the coastline becomes the Humpback Highway, as thousands of humpback whales migrate to Queensland’s warm tropical waters.
Start planning that holiday feeling at Queensland.com
