📍North West Island: Honest Review Remote Camping Experience On The Wild Southern Great Barrier Reef Coral Cay. (Capricorn Cays National Park.)

LOOKING FOR AN IN-DEPTH REVIEW OF WHAT IT’S LIKE CAMPING ON NORTH WEST ISLAND?

Consisting of over 900 individual coral cays across a monumental 328,700km2 of oceanic real estate off Queensland’s enormous coastline, the Great Barrier Reef is one of the most revered places in the world. Because along with it being home to the most breathtakingly vast underworld ecosystem on the planet, it is also the most remarkably biodiverse with thousands of marine species and birds calling this place their homeland or seasonal migratory ground.

And in the magnificent southern expanse, nestled within the 11 islands of the Capricornia Cays National Park off Gladstone and overshadowed by its two world-famous and much more frequently visited neighbours, Heron and Lady Musgrave Island, North West Island is amongst the UNESCO Natural World Heritage Sites largest cays and easily one of its most spectacularly underrated hidden gems. 

Featuring the same vividly blue azure coloured tidal lagoons, stunning white sandy beaches and magnificent coral formations years thousands of years in the making, where this place becomes well and truly into its own league, because unlike Heron’s eco-resort and Lady Musgrave’s day trip visits and floating pontoon accommodation, there is absolutely nothing on North West Island except a rustic campground and no one visiting except those who love exploring places hardly anyone knows about.

And because this place is so far off the tourist radar, it lends itself to having the most wildly authentic outdoor and oceanic experiences one can have, especially since the little human interaction in one of the most biospherically rich places on the planet, means that the number of wildlife encounters you’ll inevitably have are INSANE! Plus, if you time your visit right, it opens things up to even more incredible experiences, like seeing green and loggerhead turtles nest and hatch in the sand dunes and snorkelling amongst migrating humpback whales during their famous annual migration up and down the east coast of Australia.

I stayed there 11 days and 10 nights in November during turtle nesting season, and every moment was like being in an entire series of National Geographic documentaries. I’ve never seen so much marine and bird life and shared so many unique close encounters; to say it was unforgettable is a huge understatement. So, without further ado, let’s dive deep into my North West Island camping review and all the things that make this place the ultimate must-visit nature-lovers destination.

In this detailed review of my 10-day camping trip to North West Island, I explore all my favourite aspects of staying on this spectacular under-the-radar Great Barrier Reef coral cay and mention the areas where I felt the experience fell short. I cover all aspects, such as the island, the wildlife, and the campsite, before concluding with my overall thoughts on the stay and whether I thought it was well worth the money spent to get there.

Is North West Island Worth Visiting?

100%. North West Island is a magical wilderness wonderland that is easily the best out of the 4 Great Barrier Reef islands I have had the pleasure of visiting. I often praise the others, saying they are like being in a National Geographic documentary. But they’ve got nothing on this place because the number of close encounters I had with the wildlife population on and around this paradisiacal coral cays far exceeded all those places combined. It’s just so indescribably incredible that it’s more like being in an entire series of these planet Earth explorations. There are so many animals, and not just in the ocean either, which is just as abundant with marine creatures as the aquarium, but also on the island, which is like a jam-packed aviary. And that’s not even exaggerating. It’s seriously that densely populated!

I estimated that I saw 400 turtles, both in and out of the water, 200 rays of various species, including the leap-happy eagle rays and the unique shovelnose rats, and at least 4 sharks, such as the reef sharks, a tawny nurse and a huge one that I only saw briefly before it tucked tail and swam away. It was insane! 

Then, on the island, there were thousands upon thousands of birds everywhere of a minimum of seven genuses, including many baby bridled terns and juvenile black noddies. It was so sweet to see them. And the best thing about it is that most of these animals aren’t afraid of you! They will come and hang out right by you or barely move when you walk past them. And if they do, they usually don’t go far. It’s such a beautiful place where you can just co-exist harmoniously with these friendly creatures; it’s so wonderful. 

Not only that but because the island is so raw, wild and pristine, with the only infrastructure on it being a basic, rustic campground, staying on this breathtaking, unspoilt paradise offers one of the finest uninterrupted and authentic connections to nature in its most abundant state that you’ll find, allowing for some profoundly special and multi-faceted sensory experiences to take place, such as night time with the shearwaters, which are super sweet and quirky ground-dwelling birds with some peculiar behaviours. (Yeah, they’re a favourite.)

North West Island’s lagoon and fringing reef are the magnificent drawcards of this breathtaking, idyllic destination and the perfect gateway to the renowned Great Barrier Reef. The lagoon virtually empties almost entirely at low tide, which makes it possible to reach the reef edge by foot but impossible to get to the beach by boat, so unless you plan to anchor in the ocean, you’ll need to time your arrival and departure at high tide.

✔️ Pros.

• The lagoon and reef were absolutely magnificent and eclipsed all the other southern Great Barrier Reef islands I’ve been to by a long shot for all the reasons listed below! 
• From the beach, I could often see turtles resting in the shallow water at low tide waiting for high tide to come back in so they could return to the ocean after nesting or swimming past and popping their heads up when it was high, along with numerous rays gently gliding by, sometimes by themselves, other times in pairs. There was also possibly even a baby shark right by the shore! 
• Walking to the reef edge, it was a delight going past the aforementioned turtles chilling and coming across rays, clams, small fish and another baby shark.

• It goes without saying, but the snorkelling was INCREDIBLE and a reigning highlight of this trip. 
• The coral was colourful and vibrant. Plus, it had better species variation and a more substantial mix of hard and soft corals, a stark difference to Heron Island, which suffered a significant coral bleaching event in 2024 and consisted, most noticeably, of hard branching and plate formations.
• I couldn’t explore the entire reef edge as it’s enormous, and I didn’t have a powered boat, so I only saw about 135 degrees of it anticlockwise from the northern rock. But the best part was, by far, the area between the north rock and the boat channel because it had the most of the very cool what I called coral canyons, caves and holes.
• There were also tons of incredible encounters with the local marine wildlife population! The turtles were sometimes curious and would come close, and there would be this magical moment of just gazing awe-inspiringly into each other’s eyes.

• It was also fun to look for rays hiding in the sand on the sea floor or watch them appear from nowhere in the unique way they move. The best was when there were two eagle rays and one tried “flapping” its way over the coral after it cornered itself at a dead end.
• There were also many friendly reef sharks, a small sleeping tawny nurse shark and a massive unidentified shark that briefly appeared from the coral formation behind me that I turned around to see before it disappeared, so I’ll never know what that one was.

• Sometimes, there would be a two-three-four hit combo where animals would just appear left, right and centre!

• There were also millions of small fish, especially right at the reef edge, with many more hanging around the small coral formations in the lagoon. I have still yet to see Nemo, but saw some blue ones are look like they are part of Dory’s extended family and almost certainly Gil, the badass Moorish Idol fish. There were also many of the toothy parrotfish, and it was interesting to see them eat the coral and poop sand. 
• Taking the kayak across was fantastic. I enjoyed seeing the island from a different perspective. I also came across a ton of turtles and rays all over the place! It was so cute seeing the former pop their heads up, and I could hear them taking a big gasp of air. Sometimes, they would do that and scare themselves (probably because of the water clarity, which I mention below) and duck back under and disappear so fast that it felt like a scene that belonged in Finding Nemo. Some were even going up and down the beach.

• One of the most unforgettable moments was paddling the northern side, where there was just an endless stream of rays swimming past! Then, getting in the water with the snorkel, there was a massive group of them just lying together on the sandy bottom, including the shark-looking shovelnose ray. It was crazy. There must have been in the vicinity of 200 rays that were present in just those few minutes, it was absolutely INSANE!

• The channel is conveniently located directly in front of the campground, making it reachable for small boats to come close to offload at high tide and walk out to the reef edge at low tide.
• The water temperature was beautiful, and I could stay in the water for 2 hours at the reef edge in my wetsuit without being cold.
• I’m happy to say that the lagoon and reef were pristine. No signs of rubbish or anything.

❌ Cons.

• It takes at least 15 minutes to reach the reef edge. And in some areas, it’s hard to navigate past the lagoon coral.
• The once-yearly coral spawning event also happened while I was there, which is fascinating from an environmental standpoint and completely weird swimming through on a personal level. And between that, the parrot fish pooping sand, and the birds raining down excrement, it’s very humbling being reminded that all life is, is just going through one big fertile shitshow. 
• The water didn’t always have the best clarity. Some days, close to shore, I could see something moving above water, but not when snorkelling toward it until I was right next to it! Then, at the reef edge, the pink coral spawn sitting on the surface also made things hard to see. There was an incredible moment with several eagle rays but they were so hard to see through it all.

• Also, because of the coral spawning, a lot of brown stuff was washing up on the shore, making the idyllic look of everything less appealing. 
• Even though I wore a full-body wetsuit with neoprene along with headwear, gloves and socks and, of course, a snorkel mask, I still managed to get stung by jellyfish… on my lip. Luckily, it was only a small, short-lasting sting like the ones I got from Heron Island. According to them, the tiny but deadly irukandjii jellyfish don’t typically come out to the islands, even though they are seasonally present in Australian waters.
• Kayaking in the lagoon was sometimes challenging. It was usually a case of one side being easy to paddle along while the other was a bit hard because of the currents going the same direction, but it wouldn’t always be the same side. I usually found it toughest along the campground coming up from the southwest edge.

North West is the southern Great Barrier Reef’s largest coral cay, built up from the seafloor from ancient reefs until it rose above the surface. It was unfortunately used for guano mining (bird poop) and a turtle soup cannery before becoming what it is today: a gorgeous paradisical island with white beaches and the interior almost entirely, exclusively covered in pistonia trees, which is the home and seasonal nesting grounds to thousands upon thousands of native and migratory birds, along with the occasional brief visitors of other species. The island has one walking trail from the signs next to the middle toilet block, which leads to the southern beach.

✔️ Pros.

• The island is so idyllic. It’s so pristine and authentically wild, so the entire trip felt like a complete immersion into the natural world, making it the perfect unforgettable off-grid escape.
• The landscape is unique, with the shady and twisty bird-killing pistonia trees being the predominant trees with the forest floor mostly devoid of grasses, just the sandy holes of the shearwater burrows, giving the whole place a simultaneously slightly creepy but endearingly whimsical feel. It is also healthy. A frequent boat visitor to the island mentioned how at one point all of the leaves had disappeared, and how nice it was to see that they had all grown back after. 
• Visiting in November when the weather is warmer is a great time to camp because being on the beach and walking out the reef drop-off was hot, encouraging you to go in the water, which was a lovely temperature (in a wetsuit, I snorkelled the reef edge for 1-2 hours at a time and wasn’t cold, even though I am pretty temperature sensitive.). Then, back at the campsite, under the pisonia trees, the sun isn’t beating down on you, so it’s also lovely just chilling out in between activities, even if you are still wet. Plus, the trees also keep in the warmth, so you can really go the whole trip in light summer clothes. (I still recommend taking some light clothes just in case, though.)
• As it’s the largest coral cay in the southern GBR, you can enjoy a decent walk around it, and as the beach doesn’t have as nearly as much coral washed up on it as Lady Musgrave Island, it’s much easier to walk around barefoot when it’s not a hot day.
• One of the outstanding highlights of visiting North West Island was the massive number of loggerhead and green turtles I saw during all stages of their nightly nesting ritual, going up and down the beach, digging in the dunes or resting in the empty lagoon devoid almost entirely of water at low tide. Best of all, they weren’t doing their thing exclusively after dark, as they often started emerging from the ocean sometimes an hour before sundown and were still making their way back to the sea well past sunrise. Most afternoons had 14 or so within sight just standing on the shore outside my campsite, and one morning, I counted 127 circumnavigating the island! The numbers were insane! (It turned out to be a bumper year.)

• I also loved that the place was essentially like the most populated natural aviary because the numbers were that huge. It was so wonderful having them as constant companions, especially since they were completely unfazed by my presence. They could be on the pathway, and I walk right past them and often wouldn’t move or go far, or they’d come right near you! It is so rare that wildlife is so comfortable doing that! And plenty were always flying above the island, too! 
• As if it couldn’t get any better, many of the birdlife inhabitants were baby bridled terns or juvenile black noddies, just adding layer upon epic layer of endearing awesomeness to this already incredible island landscape. 

• Some seagulls were doing the dirty, so there are opportunities to bear witness to the whole life cycle of birds there. 😅
• Watching the black noddies pick up leaves from the ground to make their nests is so cute.
• One of the funniest things was watching one of the pied oystercatchers scream squawking intensely at its two compadres like it was their drill sergeant while they were frantically pacing the beach. 
• Seeing the heron fishing and jumping between exposed coral at low tide was fascinating. 
• Majestic white-bellied sea eagles also dropped by. I saw 3 in total, two of which were sitting on separate branches of the same tree.
• Nighttime is when the shearwaters shine. These birds are the best because they are so sweet and would randomly appear out of the darkness to say hello. They were also the ones I had the weirdest horror movie encounters with and were, therefore, the most compelling island companions I had. I go into more detail about what happened specifically with my campsite below in the campground section of this post, but some other notably memorable experiences with them were that I was watching out to the beach and could faintly see one flying directly towards my face with speed before I ducked down and it changed direction. I sincerely hope it was okay after that. The other was when I got up before dawn to walk the track to catch the sunrise on the southern side of the island, I had to wait several minutes at the intersection near the sign while as many as 100 of them, maybe more, were using it as a highway to fly out to the beach. They also make the cutest comically haunting noise, and it’s now one of my favourite nature sounds. 
• Just about every morning and evening had a spectacular sunrise and sunset, which was the perfect way to start and finish a day, with the latter being possible from the beach in front of the campsite.
• Being so far away from civilisation and light pollution, the night sky was also gorgeous. The moon was out, and there was enough light to illuminate the ground without needing a torch, making it feel so cinematic and putting me in a curiously existential frame of mind. 
• The grave and the cannery relics were small but fascinating pieces of the island’s history.
• Even though I loved staying on the island by myself, it is comforting that there was usually a boat anchored near the reef edge if an emergency arose.

❌ Cons.

• The sand can get hot walking around barefoot. (I always recommend water shoes for beach and water environments. 
• With there being so many birds on the island doing a monstrous amount of defecation, the island smells, but it doesn’t take long to become immune to it. And it helps that there are so many incredible things happening there, such as seeing all the beautiful birds that it’s not even a thing after initially noticing it.
• If you have stuff out on the beach and are visiting during turtle nesting season, the sweet marine reptiles may cover your stuff in sand. I moved my kayak high up on the beach where the campground access was due to a concern the high might come up close with the clouds that showed the potential for a storm and woke up the next day to see a turtle had dug right next to it and give it a sandy makeover! Then a few days later, when it was back lower where I usually had it, a different turtle decided it didn’t want to go up as far as the dunes where most of them dig and did the same thing! C’mon, ladies!
• The only birds that didn’t like my presence were the seagulls who were protecting of their babies. Walking along the beach, if you were nearby, they would loudly squawk and something fly around you and briefly start swooping at you, but less aggressively than magpies, before changing direction to try and scare you away from their offspring. Incidentally, I never actually saw any of their babies and wouldn’t have even known they were there if their parents weren’t making a ruckus. 😅
• As much as being wild and untamed makes North West Island such an incredible place to visit, there’s little escaping the sad reality of what that also means, which is injury and death, and there’s not much you can do about it. There was a poor shearwater that has two broken wings and kept falling over and struggling to get up, a different one that had died, a turtle that had somehow passed away after getting stuck upside down and worst of all, a turtle that had managed to crawl its way up the beach bleeding out with one of its fin and part of its shell missing after a fresh (probably) tiger shark attack. 
• Even though the beach was gorgeous, a few things ended up getting washed ashore. It was larger items, like containers, a flipper, so stuff from boats, and a random corrugated green metal sheet, not tiny fragments or typical pieces of rubbish. 

• High tide comes pretty close to the trees, especially on the southwestern side, which also has fallen trees, so it would be hard to walk the whole way around the island when it’s up, not to mention lots of navigating through soft sand. 
• On the walking track, towards the far side, it gets a bit hard to follow, especially since the trail and natural ground look the same, and some of the arrows are hard to see. It’s worse if you are coming back from the southern beach to the campground.
• It’s not intrusive, but seeing the massive cargo ships pass by slowly in the far distance does snap you back into the reality you’re trying to escape from by taking this remote wilderness island adventure. 

The campground is very basic, with only signs, toilets and a decompression chamber for divers experiencing the benz, so you need to be entirely self-sufficient and bring enough food, water and supplies to last several days longer than your trip. This is in case something arises and you can’t get back to the mainland when you planned to, such as the weather turning bad or there being mechanical issues with the boat or chartered ferry service.

The campground often has many people staying there at the same time. I was fortunate that I was travelling to North West Island on the back of two charter trips with Curtis Ferry Services, so while they were picking up/ dropping off a whole heap of people, I was doing the opposite. That combined with a brief overnighter from two other people and QPWS doing a short research trip, I had the coral cay to myself most of the time, minus a couple of quick daytime visits from people who had travelled here in their own boat, so some aspects of my trip may differ from the typical experience.

✔️ Pros.

• The campground is a huge, open space! Plenty of space so that even when many people are staying on the island, you can comfortably have your own space. 
• The area was level and shady, thanks to the prominence of the pisonia trees. It was also clean, with absolutely no rubbish anywhere.
• I also loved that even though it was so close to the beach, it was well hidden, so if you’re standing on the outside looking in, there’s not much to indicate what’s behind and the messiness that something comes with camping, so it just looks like this wild, untamed, unspoilt, deserted paradise.
• The toilet blocks were excellent. There were 3 spread out across the campground, each with 2 environmentally-friendly drop loos. All had ambulant bars, while the central block also had a ramp and a larger cubicle for wheelchair users. They appeared to be fairly new, were clean, didn’t smell, and had plenty of toilet paper. 
• There are dedicated areas for storing gas bottles if you want to keep them away from your campsite while exploring.
• Many water barrels left from other campers are on the island, the 200L ones that look like they’re the same ones from Curtis Ferry Services, with some even still having water in them, which serves as some relief if you are thinking you may run out of your own, you can use what’s left in these for washing, etc while you save yourself for drinking and cooking.
• I loved being constantly surrounded by SO MANY ANIMALS. Whether it was the birds walking or flying into my campsites vicinity unaffected by my presence, or taking a stroll to the beach and seeing like up to about 14 turtles on the beach, resting in the lagoon or hearing the smacking noise they making digging their nests at any given time between the sunset and sunrise hours and all through the night, or them and rays during the higher tides during the day, it was so magical to be in the presence of that much wildlife. And for so many of them to be so close just made encountering them so much more special. 
• The only quail on the island wandered into my campsite twice! How do I know it was the only one? Okay, fun story time. The researcher I was chatting to, coming back from Heron Island a couple of weeks before, said she was with a team from the QPWS and were trying to find button quails to repopulate North West Island, but they only managed to catch one. 🤣
• It was nice chatting with the QPWS people there researching the island’s birds and visiting me at my campsite.
• I didn’t have a problem with biting insects, but I’d bring insect repellent just in case. 

❌ Cons.

• The island has some big insects and creepy crawlies. They’re pretty cool and unique depending on who you ask, but as many people don’t like them, I put them under cons. There was a brown thony grasshopper-like creature hanging out at my campsite seemingly pissed about my presence until they realised I wasn’t a threat. A giant centipede made itself known when I was putting on my wetsuit, which scared the hell out of me, so check your stuff!
• The universally hated cockroaches were also present, but they were small brown ones, not the big, scary, chunky ones set on world domination. You need to seal your food and trash really well to stop them from coming in. There was a horror movie moment when the packet of popcorn I thought was well sealed had what seemed like hundreds of them feasting on the popped kernels. 
• Be mindful of where you set up camp and that it’s away from the exits to the beach as, at night, the nocturnal shearwaters come out of their burrows and constantly run and fly into you and your campsite even when you have the lights out, trying to take to the skies. It gets worse at predawn when they all head out in droves, and it was a constant worry they might going to hurt themselves, so you may need to move.
• With so many birds calling the island home or their seasonal breeding ground, and most of them being the tree-dwelling black noddies, there is a significant amount of bird pooping reigning down from the skies. Not as much as Lady Musgrave Island, which was like dodging enemy artillery excrement from a carpet bombing exercise. However, a tarp, gazebo, or some type of shelter is an absolute must take to North West Island, because it is very much part of the experience. 
• The decompression chamber didn’t look like anything. Just where you’d maybe store your stuff.

Is It Good Value For Money?

With the cost of staying a night being less than a blue note ($10), camping on North West Island is, undoubtedly, EXCEPTIONAL value for money. The experiences and close encounters you get here are as wild, raw and authentic as they come.

The biggest thing you have to wrangle with is the cost of getting there, which, if commercially, is a considerable amount per person just at the base price (currently a bit under $500). But even then, the answer is still the loudest, most resounding yes, because so few places are as incredibly special as the magnificent Great Barrier Reef.

So even though this is the budget version of staying on a coral cay that belongs to the largest and most richly biodiverse marine ecosystem in the world, the memories and experiences you get in return here are significantly superior to that of the resort islands, as fantastic as they are, as the moments you have with this breathtakingly pristine and refreshingly untamed environment and the animals that live in it are much more unique and personal, FAR exceeding the expense of getting there, especially if you have several days to fully relinquish yourself to that world.

• Adventurous people who love going remote to get back in touch with nature.
• Those who enjoy disconnecting from civilisation and spending time off their devices and the internet.
• Snorkellers and divers who want to see the Great Barrier Reef as naturally and authentically as possible and the animals in it rather than with an orchestrated tour with people they don’t know.
• Animal lovers who want to witness the magical experience of watching female turtles hurling themselves up on the beach, digging their nests in the dunes only to lay their ping-pong-esque eggs inside them.
• Folks who love birds.
• Wildlife lovers who want to live in a National Geographic documentary.
• Intrepid people who prefer going their own way and doing their own thing.
• Folks who like to go off the beaten track, enjoy rustic self-sufficient camping, and don’t mind that there are virtually no amenities of creature comforts, including a shower, because this is living.
• Boaties who are looking for any or all of the above.

Who Would Camping On North West Island Not Appeal To?

• People who don’t like camping, going remote, being self-sufficient or who don’t have the equipment to do so.
• Folks who feel safer going with a commercial group.
• Those who find the cost to be out of their price range.
• People who don’t have enough time or are able to wrangle the gear together during their trip.

Where Is North West Island?

How To Get To North West Island?

There is only one commercial way to reach North West Island. Departing Gladstone, Curtis Ferrmusgy Services’ 6-hour (one-way) barge trip will take you to and from the paradisical coral cays. However, departure and arrival times vary widely to coincide with the island’s high tides. For an additional cost, they can also supply you with a 200L barrel of drinkable, but not filtered, water, which was one of the best things I had on the island and take your kayak or small boat across. 

Alternatively, if you have a boat, or hire one, you can navigate to this paradisacial island by yourself. But you will also have to thoroughly consider your arrival time as the water almost drains entirely out of the lagoon, making access impossible at low tide.

NOTE: Camping on North West Island is closed yearly after Australia Day (January 26) or the Australia Day long weekend (whichever is later) and the Queensland Easter school holidays, presumably for the turtle hatching season. Daytime visiting is still permitted.

If you plan to visit North West Island, consider looking at these other posts.