A week of sheer indulgence on Hamilton Island

More champagne on the way back from Hayman to Hamilton Island
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Hamilton Island is one of those places you visit where you have to say, ‘oh, just look at the photographs’ to get an accurate idea as to its beauty and individual style. (I might have made a stab at trying to provide a worthy description in words a few weeks ago, but with the brain having been in neutral for three months, it’s far too much of an ask!).

The warm turquoise sea, lush green hills, almost permanently cloudless sky but gentle breeze are natural USPs in anyone’s book. Add to that the fact that Hamilton Island (along with the island next door) is entirely owned by one person (the guy who used to own the Rosemount Estates winery until he sold up a few years ago and was looking for something else to do!)  Everything here - the hotels, businesses, shops & restaurants – all come under close overall scrutiny by the central powers-that-be here, and the result is a truly amazing experience for the customer. Horrah, makes a change!

The Whitsundays from the air and the sea really IS that blue
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It also means that the place has an unusual ambience – it’s not very old but has quite an old fashioned style about it. The result, around the marina area especially, is an almost Disney film set look – you half expect Davy Crocket to emerge from the bush at any time. You feel like you’re really part of a real community, it’s clean and well cared for and you get to know a lot of the locals as well as your fellow travellers (each of whom receives their obligatory nick-names for ease of reference later, of course). The service everywhere is superb and very friendly (mostly from young Aussie students with their own stories of travels). And the quality of food, as with everywhere we’ve been in Australia, is fabulous. Can’t fault it.

Top speed 20 mph - downhill
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Add to all this the fact that Summer has really arrived now and the weather (at least on the Barrier Reef) has rapidly improved over the last few days getting gradually warmer and more settled – much like the UK we imagine? – and we reckon our time on Hamilton Island qualifies as one of the trip’s highlights so far. But I can’t help thinking we keep saying that! Sorry ….. please don’t give up reading yet!

There’s also loads to do as you’d expect, in the way of water sports, fishing, diving, reef visits, etc and there are a couple of upmarket sailing schools and charter companies (Sunsail, based down the road in Port Solent, have a base here too) but, as you’d also expect, we were far too lazy to partake in many of those!

Whitsunday Passage taken from One Tree Hill
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Getting around …

As with Hayman Island, there are no proper vehicles here, so all transport is by golf buggy. Part of the deal with our hotel (The Beach Club) is free buggy chauffeuring to anywhere at any time. So we had several very informative and jolly chats with various chatty young Aussie girls (very enjoyable) as they drove us to and from our restaurant bookings etc. We also met lots of other couples, one or two with young children, who are in similar boats to us, having got fed up with the UK, sold up, and decided to explore. Lots and lots of honeymooners too. Never saw much of them.

You're not the only ones having a Christmas party!
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A sunset sail …

Thursday evening we booked up to go on a two hour sailing cruise out to the Whitsundays Passsage to watch the sun set. There were about 20 of us and three very jolly crew. Muggins was conned by his dear wife to help with the supposedly simple task of hauling up the mainsail (or ‘the big white flappy thing’ as the skipper helpfully called it). This proved somewhat harder work than I was led to believe and, when the work was done, we all settled in to a few rounds of Australian fizz as we listened to the gentle lapping of the sea and a rendition of the The Tale of Snowy River by the skipper (appropriate as the yacht was called Banjo Paterson – the poet who also wrote Waltzing Matilda). Again, we got chatting to some great people and exchanged notes on all sorts of experiences which will prove useful in planning future stages of the trip.

Parked outside his favourite shop!
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Having sent an entire suitcase of clothes that no longer fit us, we’ve made an attempt to do a bit more exercise and have taken to walking up and down the beach a couple of times a day and swimming too. On our penultimate day, we were wading through about 18 inches of water when the tide was right out and happened to notice what looked like a big square tea tray on the bottom. Bit odd, we thought, until the stringray curled up its wings and darted off as all kinds of small fish leaping spectacularly out of the water to get out of its way! A couple of minutes later, we noticed a little collection of jellyfish – all completely harmless – and ran all the way back to the beach. Brave, huh!

Sunset sail on the Banjo Patterson
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De Vile & Co Christmas Party …

On Friday evening we had our own impromptu Christmas Party – just the two of us! – which started at the open air bar where everyone meets at a place called One Tree Hill to watch the sunset. We got chatting to some fellow travellers, had a few glasses of fizz, then realised the sun had gone down, everyone else had left … and it was dark! No golf buggies anywhere in sight to get a lift back down to the resort, no mobile phone, so we had to walk back down the hill in the dark … then continued with a few more glasses of wine in the marina and had a good laugh about it. Which was fine, until we woke the next morning and remembered we had to get on a plane at midday. Ouch!

Sailing around the islands early evening
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Local news …

You might have read in the news about the bush fires all over parts of Australia at the moment. Well, the neighbouring island had its own little one the other day. We noticed a gathering cloud of smoke in the distance and heard the fire alarm at the Hamilton fire station. The big red fire engine raced to the marina where it drove onto an old barge and then spent a frustrating half hour chugging over to the scene. In the meantime, several helicopters arrived and doused the whole area in water and disappeared again. The fire engine crew must have felt like their colleagues in an episode of Trumpton – always being called out but never actually tacking a real fire!

Hardest work he's done for weeks!
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There are legions of white cockatoos on the islands, and they’re clever sods. One of the golden rules here is never to leave your balcony door open when you go out as the result can be carnage. There are horror stories of cockatoos swooping in to the room, opening the cupboard with the nuts and minibar in and – get this – not only ripping open the nuts but managing to unscrew the top off the nearest beer bottle and spraying the contents all over the place. Then, I guess, flying unsteadily off singing coarse Australian rugby songs and nicking someone’s curry.

Here comes trouble ...
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Lastly, we were pleased to hear that, when Lt. James Cook discovered the area, he thought it was Whit Sunday, hence the name he gave it. In fact, he hadn’t realised that he had crossed the international date line the day before, so it was in fact the next day and there is now a day in the Australian calendar called Whitmonday. See – we’re not the only ones who get our times wrong!!