Hamilton Island

We had not been to Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays before. We lowered ourselves slowly down the steep slope from Eungella NP early on Tuesday morning (8 Sept), down amongst the cane fields, turning north again for a stay in Cape Hillsborough NP before catching the ferry over to the island from Shute Haven.

We explored much of Hillsborough NP on foot. Hills plunge into the sea, and vegetation habitats range between rainforest, vine forest, eucalypt forest with grassy understorey, with hoop pines poking above it all, and mangroves. Of Australia’s 35 species of mangroves nearly three-quarters can be seen on the Mangrove boardwalk.

Barry’s kind offer of the use of his apartment on Hamilton Island for few days was a gift because we would never have come otherwise. Proserpine, Shute - both towns are familiar through the tourist brochures but are really small places. Airlie Beach though....a hot Lorne on steroids, with development going full bore and commercialism everywhere. A pity but it does help focus attention away from the main game which of course is where the real commercial activity takes place – on the islands of Hamilton, Lindeman, Daydream and a couple of other spots, Hamilton being the most developed and up-market.

We found a handy caravan park where we were able to leave the rig securely for $10 a night, and caught the bus the ten minutes to Shute Haven where we did a bit of blogging while waiting for the ferry. The half hour trip across to Hamilton over the azure waters of the Coral Sea whetted our appetites and our curiosity. What a delightful surprise! This place is seriously good fun; so well arranged and organised, it seems like a mini version of Singapore. Clean, manicured tropical landscape in the resorts, no cars but little club buggies everywhere. Notwithstanding having its own airport it is relatively very quiet. Barry is one of the two island doctors, a job that he shares with colleagues on a month turn about basis. He has possibly one of the best jobs in the world! The privately owned houses are all to the highest quality, selling in the stratospheric region of the market, being a world class and World Heritage listed area of the world. Apparently the improvements made to the island, along with running costs last year came to $2 Billion. We loved it.

Barry’s apartment is well placed facing north, on the quieter northern side overlooking the main passage. Islands complete the view from his balcony, all National Park and not a single building to be seen across the water. Coconut palms line the beach below, with a series of well landscaped swimming pools between the sea and the accommodation. We took ourselves off to Whitehaven Beach (rated as one of the top ten in the world) for some snorkelling and a look at the other islands, where the sand is 98% pure silicon and as white as possible. Helen enjoyed a bush walk on her own to Coral Cove, with 6kms of steep ups and downs and only one grazed finger.

Ross and Kathy Thomas came up from Melbourne for a week of “rest”, so they had to share with us for a couple of days, an experience I know we’ll all remember! Kathy’s big birthday on the 10th tallied with sister Margie’s and our daughter Katie’s as well, so some toasting went on. We had four nights out there so some marvellous eating and drinking and a chance to meet with several of Barry’s work colleagues to talk about living and working in the Whitsundays. Everyone seems to love the wet season when it pours for three hours every day and mould grows on all your clothes and shoes. There is something different about Queenslanders.

All things come to pass as we know, and our brief interlude was over too quickly. On the last morning a 5:30am walk up to the top of the tallest peak on the island (Passage Peak) was a good way to finish off. We have felt that that was the end of the holiday really, all that remained was the solid drive back to Melbourne ahead of us. With a quick pack and a snatched breakfast on the way out of the door, we made the ferry nicely. Back on the mainland by 10:15, we retraced our steps to the van, to find our batteries down to just 8 volts, not a good look and we’ve probably shortened the battery life significantly. But we will learn from the exercise and will probably boost the solar collection capacity for next year. The fridges could have been turned lower too. If we ever do stay put for any sort of break we’ll be in trouble without mains power.

That was yesterday. We revisited MacKay and grabbed a lunch at a spot we had visited before, then pressed on. With about 450kms done we reached Clermont in the Central Highlands and hooked up to power for the night at a neat park, feeding the horses over the fence beside us.The temperature rose as we headed further inland of course. We got on the road this morning at 6am and after spotting flocks of brolgas over Emerald we stopped for an in-house breakfast outside Springsure under Virgin Rock, before sweeping past the Carnarvon Gorge NP where we spent such a good time a couple of weeks ago. On through Roma, and our Camps Australia Wide book told us of a free camp beside a river just north of St George. We are seated now, well fed, hoping that tomorrow morning we can nip into town and talk our way into a car service at the Toyota dealership. Forward planning can be tricky especially when weekends get in the way.