This is what it’s like to take over a private island on the world’s largest coral reef

“This is what it’s like to take over a private island on the world’s largest coral reef. The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef. It stretches for more than 1,400 miles, its 900 or so islands dotted like delicious scoops of ice cream across a chunk of the planet that’s bigger than Britain. There are plenty of splashy resorts on private islands, and some have exclusive villas. But none has an individual home with its own secluded palm-fringed address – until now.

Pelorus Private Island is on the northernmost cluster of the Palm Island group, just off the coast of Townsville, an area that’s long lived in the shadow of its flashier Whitsundays neighbours. It has the biggest single home on the reef, with five suites for 11 guests, which blends into its own nearly 1,000-acre jungle of endemic coastal vegetation and young coconut palms, fronted by World Heritage-listed coral beauty. This is the first time this patch of paradise, which is accessible by helicopter or yacht, has been fully open to the outside world.”