A day at Lady Musgrave Island

Next for us at Seventeen Seventy was a day at Lady Musgrave Island.

The only way you can get there, if you don’t own a tinnie or boat yourself, is to go on one of the cruise boats that go out to the island each day.

There are two main companies that run out to Lady Musgrave Island, these are listed at the bottom of the page.

There will be a few points for you to consider when making a choice on which company to pick to go out to see the Great Barrier Reef.

You won’t realise one of them until you are actually on the boat, as I/we did.

These points are:

If you are staying in Seventeen Seventy, you don’t want to drive to Bundaberg to catch a boat to then come back up to Seventeen Seventy to go out to the island.

Also, reverse that, if you live in the Bundaberg area, you don’t want to drive up to (you still could though) Seventeen Seventy to catch a boat to the island, spend a day out at the island, and then drive home.

Another point in regards to leaving from Bundaberg is the travel time in the boat.

If you read what happened to us below, and you don’t have any sea legs, you will want to minimise the time travelling to Lady Musgrave Island in the boat to cut down on sea sickness.

One of the companies (Lady Musgrave Cruises) also has a pontoon, although it was out of action when we went, it is still a bonus rather than staying on the boat.

So we had already decided on Lady Musgrave Cruises for our trip out to the island.

We had to be at the office earlier than expected to catch the tides in the morning.

So it was up at sunlight, get the kids dressed, fed, teeth brushed, into the car, and on our way for a great day.

Oh, I almost forgot, amongst all of that was to take our sea sickness tablets.

We got some chewable ones from the chemist, they are good for kids and adults too, so you aren’t doubling up buying two lots.

We arrived and already had our boarding passes so we didn’t have to wait in line at all.

That was handy with the kids there I can tell you.

Another thing here to add is when you are booking with Lady Musgrave Cruises they were very flexible with changing or dates when needed, also, they take the payment for your cruise off your cc the day before you leave.

So make sure you have your cash ready on your card.

This boat in the photo above is the boat we boarded, it is just a photo I took out at the island.

As we were on first, we went upstairs and sat about 3 rows from the front and then settled into our seats.

We watched everyone else board and also, and as we had to beat the tides, watched people get turned away for being late too.

Make sure you are early and on time for your cruise, red hot tip for you.

If you are late, they do have a back up drop off boat that brings you out.

We circled the point for quite a while waiting for the rest of the group to get dropped off, then we were on our way to Lady Musgrave Island.

The nice cruise on the way out to the open sea lulls you into a false sense of security, so don’t be fooled.

Once you are out on the water it depends on so many things in regards to you getting a flat trip out or a rough trip out to the island.

We had a relatively ok trip out, talking to the Captain later he said it was one of the best so far all year.

One of our little ones needed a loo break on the way out, and what an experience that was.

I felt a bit green after this, and they did vomit a few times too once we got back to our seats.

So make sure, if you are taking kids onboard, have your toilet breaks before you set off.

This photo above is the view of Lady Musgrave Island from the boat when you arrive and tie up to the pontoon.

It takes about an hour and a half to get out to Lady Musgrave Island.

This of course depends on the conditions.

I am pretty sure if it’s rough they don’t travel out to the island.

We were split into groups for doing the different activities of the day.

It worked out perfect with kids that we would head over to Lady Musgrave Island first to do the tour, then view the Great Barrier Reef with the glass bottom boat, and then it was time for snorkelling on the reef to finish off with.

Perfect.

We headed off to the island in the smaller glass bottom boat.

In a quick explanation of how Lady Musgrave Island came to being, also the explanation we were told, is that the island formed from pieces of coral meshing together over time to form an island.

Birds then settled on the island and leave all their droppings on the top layer.

So when you hit the island you are walking on coral and bird pooh.

The beaches and sand are beautiful and great for photos too.

You get off the boat and walk towards the beach in the shallow water.

You can tell straight away it isn’t normal sand.

When you hit the trees inland, you walk through a track through the island to the other side.

The skyline isn’t visible much through the dense amount of trees fighting for the sunshine above.

Our guide ran through the history of island, how it came to be, the history of people living on there, the animal history, and more.

I won’t go into too many details about this here, because if you do the cruise yourself you will find out how amazing this place is, and also the Great Barrier Reef as well.

There is a designated camping area on Lady Musgrave Island too, and you pass by it on the guided tour.

Up to 40 people can camp there and you have to book and pay for camping there too.

There are many rules and regulations for camping here as you would expect.

You can find out more here, Camping at Lady Musgrave.

This photo above is how close we came to the Lady Musgave Island camping area while on our walk.

After walking past the camp site you pop out on the other side of the island.

There is a chance for great photos here.

You then head back to the smaller glass bottom boat walking along the beach you see below.

The views from looking both ways are amazing.

So we filed back onto the glass bottom boat and headed back towards the main boat and pontoon while taking in the Great Barrier Reef sights.

This photo below is the view you get on the glass bottom boat.

You drift over the coral and see all of the fish and turtles, and all of the other wildlife that you can find on the reef.

A point that was made while we were cruising the reef that the Nemo fish (Clown Fish) has pretty much disappeared from this area.

Quite a sad fact really as the Lady Musgrave Cruises boat has had this fish as a symbol for over twenty years now.

Since the Nemo movie release we were told that people had been taking the Nemo fish off the reef to keep at home and slowly but surely the numbers had been dwindling down over time.

We stayed on the glass bottom boat for a while and then headed back to the main boat for lunch, and then it was time for snorkelling.

It’s a good time to talk about food now on the Lady Musgrave Island Cruise.

The food wasn’t too bad.

Cakes, fruit, and biscuits for morning tea.

There was a buffet style lunch with plenty of salad and fruits too.

Enough for everybody and also enough of the right type of food to hit the spot.

After we finished eating and cleaned the kids up it was time to get sorted for sizing for our snorkelling gear.

The kids all wore life jackets, goggles, snorkels, and we had the extra flippers too.

If you are worried about taking your kids out, we have little ones and they were fine hanging onto our backs while we checked out the reef.

The water was cool when I first jumped in, and like normal, the temperature settled after a while.

It is a great experience snorkelling over the Great Barrier Reef.

There is plenty to look at, just make sure you don’t touch the reef as it can give you a nasty cut and they get infected easily too.

And so, after snorkelling and cleaning up the kids it was time for a last relax and look at the island.

The crew started to tidy up and prepare for our journey back to Seventeen Seventy.

The trip back was smooth and steady, no chance of sea sickness at all I’d say for anyone on board.

We had chomped on our sea sickness tablets though, just incase.

We left just after sunrise and returned as the sun was setting over Seventeen Seventy.

The kids slept all they way back, we ate potato chips and enjoyed the views.

What a great day, what a great family adventure.

Want to travel to Lady Musgrave Island?

I would have no hesitation in recommending Lady Musgrave Cruises to anybody else looking to travel to and see Lady Musgrave Island and the Great Barrier Reef.

There are a few options though if you wanted to enquire about the cost and availability of the experience.

Here below are the contacts for both companies, we used the first as we were in Seventeen Seventy.

You can see above for the positives and negatives.

Lady Musgrave Cruises
535 Captain Cook Dr
Seventeen Seventy QLD 4677

P 07 4974 9077
W Lady Musgrave Cruises

Lady Musgrave Experience
15-17 Marina Dr
Bundaberg QLD 4670

P 0427 009 922
W Lady Musgrave Experience

Where to next?

Well I hope you enjoyed what I had to say about our day out on Lady Musgrave Island with Lady Musgrave Cruises.

You can see what we got up to on our first day camping at Seventeen Seventy here, Camping at 1770.

Or if you want to see what we did on the last day of our holiday you can here, Checking Out and going for a Walk.