Right wavelength: Heron Island

Turtles viewed from the island's quasi-submarine

"INFANTS are just hand luggage," a travel veteran told me before the arrival of a Jackson jnr. "Take them to all the posh restaurants before they can walk, and travel."

"Families should stick to holidays in Queensland and stop inflicting their kids on the rest of us during long-distance flights," sniped a chorus of online travellers. Snipers, we took your advice.

So, wary of the many evil eyes cast by business travellers on a red-eye up to Brisbane and onward to Gladstone, the first family holiday is to that bastion of family holidays, north of the border.

Heron Island is a coral cay 72kilometres off the coast of Gladstone. It's a two-hour ferry journey or, if you're flush, half an hour in a chopper.

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