Guests at Paradise Bay have the opportunity to see dolphins, turtles, hump back whales during their annual migration north (Jul - Oct), incredible varieties of soft and hard corals, dozens of species of birds, butterflies and tropical fish, goannas and wallabies.

And the wallabies at Paradise Bay are just one of the staff ...they know their feeding time and aren’t shy to pop into the gazebo to remind you it’s organic weetbix time*.

Edwina and her ‘partner’ Maverick have also become partial to bananas, and Poppy the newest addition to the family is becoming quick to learn. Princess and her ‘playmate’ Fabio who is the resident male have also recently had a Joey named Louie who has also been quick to learn the ropes at Paradise Bay.
Our skipper and guide also has an extensive knowledge and interest in the local fauna & flora and loves to share his adventures and enthusiasm with guests.

Paradise Bay Eco Escape and the surrounding marine and national parks are an unspoilt natural wilderness, with an abundance of unique Australian wildlife living in its natural habitat.

The surrounding Conway National Park is 22,500 hectares including the rainforest-clad Conway Peninsula and protects the largest area of lowland tropical rainforest in Queensland outside Tropical North Queensland. Hoop pines grow on coastal ridges and in damp gullies, emerging above the rainforest canopy. Rugged, steep, rocky cliffs provide a spectacular 35 km-long backdrop to the Whitsunday Passage and islands.

Conway Park's vegetation is very similar to that on the Whitsunday Islands because thousands of years ago the sea level rose, drowning coastal valleys and creating the islands. For thousands of years, the Ngaro and Gia people also roamed these forests, harvesting the riches of the forests and the adjoining sea country. Today the adjacent waters are protected in marine parks.

Dry vine thicket, mangroves, open forests with a grasstree understorey, paperbark and pandanus woodlands, and patches of lowland rainforest with twisted vines grow in the park. It is home to two of Australia's mound-building birds, the Australian brush-turkey and the orange-footed scrubfowl of which you will see both at Paradise Bay.

Amongst the numerous birdlife, you’ll also become familiar with the ‘curlews’ known to the staff as ‘old English butlers’ by the way they prance around and seem to own the place, yet in an elegant and proud way. The cockatoos also make themselves at home and comfortably perch on the frangipani trees outside the gazebo. And it wouldn’t be a typical day in Paradise without a bush turkey roaming the area, quick to get out of the way when the full size (yet friendly) goannas make their presence known. The kookaburra, a well known Australian bird and largest in the Kingfisher family, will also make itself known with a breakfast call in the form of a loud ‘chuckle’.

The friendly wildlife will soon become another familiar face whilst staying at Paradise Bay, and are very much a part of the Paradise Bay Eco Escape experience.

* The wallabies are not indigenous to the island and National Parks allowed island staff to keep them at Paradise Bay as our ‘pets’. We supplement their diet with organic weetbix and fruits