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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Travel
Joe Hinchliffe

‘A reason to get up … and it’s free’: a volunteering holiday in the Whitsundays

Sarah Wilson Whitsundays Whitsunday Great Barrier Reef
Fish at Manta Ray Bay in the Whitsundays, Queensland
A holiday of sorting litter is ‘not the kind of Whitsundays experience likely to end up on the cover of a brochure, but there are plenty of those experiences to be had’. Photograph: Keiran Lusk/Tourism and Events Queensland

It is with mixed emotions that one visits a turtle rescue centre with no turtles. One’s better self delights in stories of those nursed back from the brink and released in joyous, tearful ceremonies. But, I’ll admit, I really did want a selfie with a sea turtle.

I’m in the Whitsundays, with an eccentric group of volunteers, but we aren’t saving sea turtles. For the first time in more than a year, there aren’t any around to save.

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