KEY POINTS:
Lady Elliot Island is a coral cay (part of a lagoon) at the southernmost tip of the Great Barrier Reef.
It's home to thousands of birds, some resident and some migrant, either coming to breed or making a pitstop on their migration route.
The waters are teeming with fish, live coral, manta rays and (at the right time of year) turtles, dolphins and humpback whales.
We visited in March, in the middle of the turtle hatching season when the baby turtles emerge from the sand and run down to the ocean - a few lost souls who head for the trees are gathered up by the rangers most days and set free in a staged release at night.
Most visitors to the island gather to watch, there's an official photography session with the blinking baby turtles, and then flashes and torches are banned - turtles instinctively head towards light, thinking it's the horizon. We also saw a turtle laying her eggs, although the main nesting season is between November and January.
Since the island is part of the Great Barrier Reef it has the highest possible classification of Marine National Park Zone, but you can dive, snorkel or swim there.
There's a range of resort activities like reef walks, bird spotting and touring the reef in a glass bottomed boat - the focus is on education and raising awareness about the threats to the reef and some of its inhabitants.
Fraser Island, off Australia's east coast just south of the Great Barrier Reef, is the world's largest sand island and a World Heritage site.
The island is home to up to 200 of Australia's native wild dog, the dingo. Because there's been little inbreeding with dogs, the Fraser Island dingoes are considered to be among the purest strain of dingo in Australia.
Outside of the island's two resorts there's no bitumen or gravel, and travel is entirely over dirt tracks in 4WD vehicles.
Kingfisher Bay Resort, on the island's west coast, is also a leader in environmental, non-impact tourism.
The resort's design and infrastructure aim to minimise the effects on the natural environment, and in addition to an energy efficiency programme operating throughout the resort and paper, glass, aluminium, tin and plastics recycling, there's a "poo farm" to deal with organic waste, scrap paper and kitchen scraps.
Waste is put through a succession of sluice ponds to remove excess water and is then feed to worms.
The richly organic worm casings are used to fertilise the herbs grown for Kingfisher's kitchens or sent to the mainland to be used as compost.
"This is recycling in its purest form," says head ranger Colin Anderson.
"Ecotourism used to mean just resorts in pretty places, but we believe tourism can be ecologically sustainable."
The resort's worm farm has been visited by several local councils who are keen to start organic waste recycling on a commercial scale.
