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There is no shortage of lizards on the eponymous island of the Great Barrier Reef, including sand monitors, those enormous primeval-looking reptiles. But I'm going to Lizard Island to meet another kind of giant. More precisely, a Potato Cod - a protected species named for its blotchy skin that vaguely resembles a constellation of spuds. There ends the vegetable resemblance as this solitary fish measures up to 2m in length and can weigh in at 100kg. More intriguing still, its inquisitive nature leads to it communing with divers and, curiouser and curiouser, it undergoes a sex change later in life. The world’s best location for seeing the potato cod? The outer reef off Lizard Island in northern Queensland, Australia.

That is not the only feature of this tropical island, which first entered the annals of whiteman’s history in 1770 when a panicky Captain Cook struggled up the central peak to identify a passage out through the reefs and atolls. The spot where he raised his telescope is now called Cook’s Look, and is a tough though scenic two-hour climb from the coast. This highlights another bonus, the fact that you can walk through hills of grass, acacias, pandanus, melaluccas, eucalypts and even swathes of mangroves, all interspersed by mammoth granite boulders, before plunging into the depths of the Pacific. Dozens of pristine white beaches edge the island and, as there is only one hotel (and no houses), you are more than likely to have a casuarina-fringed crescent of sand to yourself. No sun-lounger battles here - just a flotilla of motor-dinghies at hotel-guests’ disposal.

As the dive-boat slows to anchor, our group of Brits, Aussies, Spaniards and Americans prepares to dive or snorkel in the emerald and sapphire waters surrounding the Cod Hole. We are about 20 nautical miles east of Lizard Island at the very northern end of the Great Barrier Reef, that spectacular underwater universe of around 1500 species of fish (the numbers increase annually as new ones are identified) and hundreds of types of coral. After being discovered in 1960, the rare community of Potato Cod (in fact members of the grouper, not cod family) was fed by fishermen and later by the resort boats - not quite environmentally correct but they obviously thrive on their pilchard diet and are carefully monitored by Lizard’s Research Station.

Nine of these giants live several metres down around what resembles a massive crater in the coral, and all are blessed with Aussie nicknames ranging from Grumpy to Cuddles and the strikingly unpoetic Herpes. The bubbles gurgle upwards as our small group descends into the Hole to meet our first specimen. Immense and silent, it weaves between us. I extend a tentative hand (remembering divers’ stories of a Moray eel ripping off the flesh of a woman’s arm) and finally stroke the firm, slimey, slightly scaley back. It nuzzles up and we eyeball each other. He (or is it she? who knows? I later learn that most reef fish undergo sex changes after spawning ) is no beauty, with a prominently jutting lower lip, bulging globular eyes and that distinctive rash of potatoey blotches, but obviously revels in this contact and attention.

After a bit more piscean communication, our group swims on to explore the rest of this dazzling aquatic world only to find another potato cod hovering round the coral corner at the “cleaning station”. Just like a wash-and-go garage, this is where the potato cod is given valet treatment by small cleaner wrasses which dart around removing parasites, a brilliantly efficient system of keeping the fish healthy.

It is hard not to be distracted by the beauty of the corals: brain, plate, sun-loving mushroom, staghorn, spaghetti - it’s a wonderland of shapes, textures, colour and scale. Myriad reef fish are equally captivating, their polychrome markings ranging from the moss green and black stripes of a huge Napoleon Wrasse to the vivid turquoise and mauve Parrotfish. A real oddity is the Blacksaddled Toby which, despite a stunning dots-and-stripes design, somehow resembles a purse-lipped schoolmaster. There are giant clams too, their wavey rims edged in velvety purples or indigo blues studded with black sensory eyes. Later that day, back at Lizard, we go for a snorkel in a bay where there are literally hundreds of these geriatric shells (some live for over 70 years) which open up punctually at midday to absorb maximum sunlight. Then along swims a green turtle, its fins lazily propelling it through the clear tepid depths - I follow, completely entranced, like chasing the rabbit in Alice’s Wonderland.

Back on terra firma, I begin to wonder if Lizard and its environs is not some kind of antipodean Eden. I learn that the snakes, tree frogs, monitor lizards and geckos are all so unthreatening that flocks of sun birds, bee eaters, drongos, swallows and pheasant coucals have been lured here from the mainland. They join ospreys, herons, sea eagles and sea-gulls, all of which swoop and glide over the rocky outcrops or, in the case of the brazen gulls, dive in to the open-sided restaurant to finish off our breakfast croissants.

According to Aboriginal legend, Duka Dikaru (their name for the island they once visited to fish and hunt turtles and dugong) was formed by rain created by the deity Thunderstorm. This was a vengeful move against a recalcitrant spirit which had escaped to the mountain top and disguised itself as fog. All this took place during Dreamtime, the Aboriginal version of Genesis. All very obscure, if not opaque. As I settle down on my veranda day-bed in order to absorb the sights and sounds of the inky night, I muse on this myth. A gecko croaks its familiar ‘chook-chook’, starlight flickers behind the palms, the waves lap, the air is balmy and salty. Then I realise that for me the Potato Cod was not quite a Genesis, more an aquatic epiphany.

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