traveller Home comforts
During the last ice age, it was a mountain range separating the mainland from the sea. After dark, we freshen up before sitting down to a multi-course meal in Orpheus’s expansive pavilion, tables for two facing out across the torch-lit gardens and the sea beyond. Chef Main and his team switch up the menu daily. One night you might have Cape Grim beef tenderloin with horseradish foam; the next, pan-seared snapper with bok choy and black fungi. Everything is North Queensland fresh and full of colour, the service precise but unobtrusive. The next morning, we have a snorkelling date to attend. Fitzmaurice and her team outfit us with flippers and suits, before Orpheus’s dive boat, the Maree Ann, powers us south, around the
OUR region
tip of Orpheus towards the eastern shore of nearby Curacoa Island, where an extended stretch of reef sits particularly close to the surface. Fitzmaurice take us into the water, the high mid-morning Queensland sun shining on the coral below. It’s like entering another world. Floating along with the gentle current, we dive to inspect giant brain corals, elephant ear sponges and all sorts of bizarrely shaped anemones. Parrot fish zip this way and that, while more timid sea creatures peek at us from inside deep crevices. We team up with other guests, pointing out each and every hyper-coloured creature. When motioned back to the boat, we hardly want to leave. That same reluctance strikes in the afternoon, when we hear the
38 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine
Breathtaking ... snorkelling on a fringing reef at Orpheus Island (right); salt and pepper squid with wasabi cream, served at the pavilion where tables face out to sea (far right).