The gods of music and poetry, The Muses, gathered Orpheus' remains and buried him at the foot of Mount Olympus and in his memory set his lyre among the starts. The magic of his music lives on in the sands and splendour of Orpheus Island.

Today's Orpheus really begins eighty kilometres south of the island when you board the seaplane for a memorable twenty minute flight from Townsville. Sea Air Pacific's seven-seater De Havilland is a heavy, primitive machine with a temperament designed to put the adventure back into flying. You can sense the effort in the steel grey plates as she lifts her weight from the ground and powers carefully out over the bay and past Magnetic Island on your right.

It's extremely noisy only a thousand feet above the smooth sea. Below, a delightful welcome from the abundant life of the Barrier Reef; a pair of manta rays doing their own form of flying just beneath the surface of the water, heading north along the string of islands off the coast.

After passing the Palm Islands, home to a large aboriginal community, we begin our swooping descent to Orpheus. The engine requires a little nurturing, the pilot easing back the throttle lever, a practised adjustment of the fuel mixture and elevator trim as the altimeter unwinds and we glide lower over the watery runway. Fortunately it's a calm day and the plane's landing floats meet the bay quietly, skating towards the pontoon moored out from the resort. Solid areas of water are sliced away from beneath the floats, producing a sound that might be mistaken for a continuous sigh of relief from fellow passengers, now well disposed for a relaxing stay on one of the Barrier Reef's most enchanting hideaways.

Orpheus Island was named by Lt. G.E. Richards, Commander of HMS Paluma in 1887, in memory of HMS Orpheus, a steam corvette with a crew of 188 which was lost on the treacherous Manaku Bar in New Zealand in 1863. Lying 24 km off the mainland, Orpheus is 11 km long and one kilometre across at its widest point. The surrounding waters boast some of the best coral on the Reef. On the western, resort side of the island, Townsville's James Cook University has established a marine research laboratory at Pioneer Bay. Otherwise, Orpheus is an uninhabited National Park of 3,400 acres renowned for its variety of bird life including herons, cockatoos, shrub hens and sun birds. Magnificent osprey circle above the craggy cliffs on the eastern side of the island, home to a colony of wild goats.

In 1980, the sleepy retreat established on the island after the Second World War was bought by Carlo Cobianchi, former Italian amateur golf champion and Chief of Pirelli in Australia. After an extensive redevelopment program, the new Orpheus resort was opened in December 1981. "For the people who come here", announced Carlo, "Orpheus must be their island, their home. Not just another resort, another island on the Barrier Reef. "Since then it has won numerous awards: in 1984 it was voted the best resort in the whole of the Pacific by American Andrew Harper's Hideaway Report and in 1985 the best in Queensland by the Queensland Tourist and Travel Corporation.

Never one of the more publicised islands, Orpheus has nevertheless attracted more than its fair share of famous personalities; Vivian Leigh, Helen Reddy, Elton John, Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Duke and Duchess of Westminster are among those who have favoured this leisurely resort, more reminiscent of the island havens of yesteryear before the great luxuriating of many of Queensland's tropical destinations.

Orpheus has lost little of its natural charm through the development process. The National Park listing has meant the interior of the island has remained virtually untouched, while the resort is strung out along one bay, a well-spaced row of Italian-style bungalows facing a beachfront lined with introduced palm trees which foster the tropical atmosphere. There is no huge accommodation and service complex: the focus of the resort is the open-air dining room and coffee lounge, both designed for comfort and atmosphere over architectural prominence. On Orpheus the island remains the star attraction; the reef, the glorious sunsets over the coastal ranges in the distance, the secluded beaches and quiet forest glades.

"Character-wise Orpheus has it all over the others", says Gary Low, General Manager on the island. "The setting, the location, the staff and the atmosphere we create are the backbone of the whole operation. We try to avoid the word exclusive because a lot of people look at who's been up here and say we can't afford that. One of the reasons why your household names come here is because we have a reputation for privacy.

"If you went to a commercialised resort you'd see a very different reaction to having Maxi Walker hop off the sea-plane or Delvene Delaney and John Cornell. Up here they know they won't be bothered. We can be classed as exclusive but that doesn't mean stuffy or expensive or elitist, because we have a lot of fun and it's relaxed. Orpheus is a resort that runs at just the right tempo".

Gary Low has been in the resort business for eight years, and spent four years as assistant manager on Lizard Island before coming south to Orpheus when the resort became a member of the Select Hotel group eighteen months ago. Since his arrival he has extended the range of activities and sporting facilities offered to match those of most competitors, adding another dimension to the Orpheus experience and the reason why the main beach, bungalows and studios appear deserted a lot of the time.

Guests may be out in the game boat, doing battle with the big game fish found in the lightly fished waters of the surrounding reefs or diving from the twin-hulled Power Cat. Another of the charter boats, the M.V. Black Jack, runs island hops for picnic lunches on nearby Pelorus and Fantome Islands. You can take out the catamarans, sailboards or canoes waiting on the front beach or load up an outboard runabout with one of the chef's bumper picnic hampers and head for a beach of your own. On the way home in the late afternoon, try a Robinson Crusoe cruise up a creek winding through the mangroves at high tide.

There's no tally-ho organisation or enforced camaraderie; the facilities are there to be used at your leisure and the Orpheus crew, the friendliest and most relaxed you're ever likely to encounter, are never far away should you need a helping hand.

"Our main policy is we don't tell the house guests what to do", says Gary. "We don't schedule anything, we suggest what might be good on the day. They can either have an extremely relaxing time and not be pushed to do anything, or can become involved in all the activities we offer.

"If someone comes up from down south for a nice relaxing holiday and then see they can go light game fishing for marlin and sailfish, or if they want to catch a thousand pounder in season, they can do that. Scuba diving on the reefs around the island is exceptional because they've hardly been dived before. And if a couple arrives and one isn't a certified diver, we have the resort diving course. Then there's the water skiing, snorkelling, glass bottom boat trips, rock pool swimming, tennis and the fresh water pool. For anyone interested in bird watching, we have a naturalist on the staff who'll take them through the dense area of the island. In the wet we have 200 species of birds who come through. At night we have many different interesting birds and animals, many of them you've probably seen around the restaurant.

"It's a place where everything is there if you want to use it, or you can just relax and enjoy. The staff will do anything for you, all you have to do is ask. We do a lot of our own training and select staff on their personalities. If somebody comes up here and says "I've been doing silver service for ten years and I'm the best, we might not employ that person for other reasons. We need people up here who fit into the environment and know how to make our guests feel relaxed".

The staff will do the servant routine if that's how you like to do business, but most guests appreciate the fact that this is their home and so if it's local, honest hospitality and knowhow you're looking for, you won't be disappointed. On one of the days of our visit, we took the trip out on the glass-bottom boat for a bit of snorkelling. Amongst those who stayed on the boat, an elderly American woman holidaying on her own mentioned to Dave, the 'head beach guy', that she wouldn't mind learning how to snorkel. The next day the blackboard in the restaurant announced that snorkelling lessons would be held in the swimming pool, just so our friend wouldn't feel like she was being a nuisance or disrupting the day's routine.

As it turned out, she didn't make the snorkelling lesson - we caught a glimpse of her from our runabout, speeding past with two new friends on a catamaran tipped at 45 degrees.

At lunchtime and dinner, the guests assemble in the open-air dining room for their next surprise feast from young Executive Chef, Don Haddn, who in eight months at Orpheus hasn't repeated a single menu. The food is plentiful and always meticulously presented, and no matter what highlights you've experienced through the day, one can't help feeling that you've only been filling in time between meals.

Don's home town is Ballarat, in Victoria, where he began his training at the tourist gold town of Sovereign Hill before moving to the Fiddler's Three French Restaurant in Sydney and then to Townsville. Despite a five year apprenticeship and eight months at the five-star Sheraton Hotel's premier restaurant, Don says he's learnt more about his own cooking during the eight months on Orpheus where he's free to, 'do his own thing'.

The restaurant offers a sumptuous seafood buffet each Saturday, a barbecue on Sundays and weekdays an impressive a la carte menu. Breakfast offers cereals, fresh fruit and juice and Don's specialty of the day; lunches tend to be light affairs with an exhaustive selection of tropical fruits.

"People are more adventurous with their tastes here", says Don. "you still have your barriers but they tend to be more willing to try something different. Up here it's 90% visual appeal - like with the mud crab; people see that huge red claw and they're sold. If it looks good they're going to try it and then you've got a head start with your own ideas, and in eight months I've never had any trouble coming up with new ones. I still use the same base ingredients - the King Salmon, the Coral Trout, Barramundi, the Mackerel - it's what you do with them; filo pastry, crumbing, parcels, grilling the poaching, the works.

"It also depends on the guests: if they like plain grilled fish I'll only use pine nuts, or another night I might wrap it in lettuce leaves and spinach and serve a beurre blanc which is a rich white wine butter sauce. If I have a full house I'll do things I can work quickly with - cream soup, oysters, maybe garlic prawns and a roast eye fillet with a bourdelaise red wine sauce, and a chicken dish with ham and camembert cheese.

"We work with whatever we can get fresh, the seasonal fruit and vegetables. Five or six years ago we couldn't get many of the vegetables we use for wonderful things, and if we had them then, like a squash for example, people would have thought we were serving poisoned pumpkins or something. That's the modern side of Australian cooking coming out. Australia has more international cooking than anywhere else. Each European country has its own, we have all of theirs, yet a particularly Australian cuisine does surface here in the north more than in Sydney or Melbourne because the chef can do what he wants with the freshest produce.

"You have to be versatile these days; the days of the traditional French chef are gone; you have to extend yourself. I cook Japanese as well even though I'm not formally trained. Our key note is simplicity, but we can still create adventurous combinations of flavours. You have to surprise them and stimulate them, but let them feel comfortable at the same time. I take a traditional idea and do something from that base - I call it creative cuisine".

At sunset, Orpheus must have one of the most beautiful settings for a restaurant anywhere. Shafts of golden light pierce the overhanging boughs of bougainvillaea blossoms and there's a delicate scent of frangipani as the sun sets over the ranges across the water with a view of Hinchinbrook Island in the distance. The candles are lit and with a bottle of fine wine the atmosphere is perfectly relaxed sophistication. Sitting here you could be literally anywhere you'd like to imagine, on a Greek Island or in the Caribbean, and when things come into focus again the dream is still with you; the magic of the Barrier Reef.

People have different ideas of an island holiday and despite the great variety of Queensland's resort market, they're all shooting for the same market. Orpheus will always remain one of the more exclusive resorts, mainly because there's a limit of fifty guests at any one time, children under 12 are not permitted and no day trippers are allowed - all restrictions which ensure the privacy and comfort of the island's guests.

"We need the other resorts on the reef like Hayman and Mirage because they offer different things", Gary Low says. "They also attract tourists into the area and in the long run we all benefit. The idea of Hayman is great because some people do like to wear a suit to dinner, but to me that's not having a relaxed holiday - you can do that in New York or wherever you're coming in from. From June to August we have a lot of Australians from the southern states and over the year we have about 73% international guests, most of whom have heard about us by word of mouth, even though one of our biggest problems has been that guests will say 'we've had a wonderful stay, a fantastic holiday and we're definitely coming back, but there's no way we're going to tell anybody about this place'.

"All the same, that's our biggest incentive - to see the house guest go out of here 100% happy. We have a file for letters of complaint and the file's empty. When people get off that aircraft they're wound up like tight springs - sometimes because they didn't realise they were going to land on the water. That's a big surprise for some. You can see the difference when they walk down that pier again to go home, it's amazing. And groups who've met on their stay with us often re-book so that they'll all meet up again for their next holiday here. And when they return they're instantly relaxed because they recognise Annie behind the bar, the hostesses and the beach guys. When it's time to say goodbye there are often a few tears shed and we know we've helped the person have an enjoyable holiday".