The Lady Musgrave Island

Lady Musgrave Island is a 14 hectares (35 acres) coral cay on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, with a 1,192 hectares (2,950 acres) surrounding reef. The island is the second island in the Great Barrier Reef chain of islands (with the first being Lady Elliot Island), and is most easily reached from the town of 1770, Queensland, located on approximately 5 hours north of Brisbane. It is named for the wife of Sir Anthony Musgrave, a colonial governor of Queensland.Lady Musgrave Island, and the immediate surrounds, is a national park and can be reached by excursion boat from the Town of 1770. It is also part of the Capricornia Cays Important Bird Area. Lady Musgrave Island is the most intensively used of the camping islands within the Capricorn Bunker group, due to its protected anchorage within a semi-enclosed lagoon and a regular ferry service. More than 10,000 day-visitors were brought to the island by commercial tourism operators during 1997. In addition, 1,278 campers visited the island for 8,008 camper nights and there were an estimated 5840 visitors from recreational boats during that year.It is recognized that the permitted numbers of visitors on Lady Musgrave Island at this time,have reached (and at times exceeded) an ecologically sustainable level.This island is the only shingle cay situated on the leeward reef flat.the island also has Beach rock that is exposed along the north eastern and eastern beaches and an outcrop of lithified coral conglomerate, similar to that forming the core of the cay, occurs near the south eastern corner.