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Published: February 21st 2015
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The Spirit of Queensland train We didn't have long in Brisbane so after the bus tour we thought we'd do a museum - but they closed on Mondays! So we went to a very pretty park for some lunch and a nice lady gave us a little tour which we enjoyed. Brisbane seemed a very pleasant city but unremarkable, known for Castlemaine XXXX.
Our train, 'The Spirit of Queensland' left in the afternoon and took 15 hours to get to Proserpine. We were in the first class section so we had lovely big seats with TV which then made into a bed at night - just like airline business class. They brought our food to us as well so we were comfy and well looked after and saw plenty of kangaroos on this trip. Proserpine is just over half way to Cairns and that was our stop to make the crossing over to Hamilton Island. It was still only 9am on Tuesday by the time we got over there. Hamilton Island is one of very few inhabited islands in the Whitsunday group, very close to the Great Barrier Reef and very tropical. We had a little bungalow set in amongst the trees and the resort
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Anne on board itself was quite large with several bars and restaurants and six pools. There can't possibly be any Chinese in Cambridge at the moment cos they're all here!! There was easily 20 Chinese to every Brit/Aussie - all over during their new year.
Anyway, we always understood we might hit weather problems in this area and as it turned out we did. The news started warning us about Cyclone Marcia heading towards our coast. We'd booked a trip to Whitehaven Beach for Wednesday and a full day snorkelling in the reef for Thursday. Tuesday was very showery but with very hot and sunny spells in between. Wednesday was good so we had our trip to Whitehaven. This is ranked as one of the top beaches in the world - the sand is white silicon, like talcum powder as it's actually the mouth of what was a volcano billions of years ago. It's 7km long and you can only get to it by boat or helicopter so there are never many people there at a time. However, the sea is full if invisible jelly fish so you have to wear a stinger suit to swim!
That night the storm hit,
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Boat to Hamilton Island however we got off very lightly as the cyclone hit land about 100 miles south of us and some places were very badly affected - was that reported in the UK I wonder? Unfortunately all reef trips were cancelled on Thursday as the sea was too rough! That was our only chance as we had to leave on Friday, so we were very disappointed about that. Instead we went for a walk up to the highest point of the island - extremely hot and humid, but lovely views from the top. The temperature is about 32C whether cloudy or sunny so no fear of getting cold. The island is about 3 miles long and 1 across, with the marina/village, our resort and about a population of 800 maybe and 1500 golf buggies (no cars) plus a very exclusive resort at one end where the likes of Brad & Angelina stay (One Direction were there at the same time as us but we didn't see them). Just got back for a swim before the rain settled in for the afternoon so we went back to our bungalow and watched a film. The evening was fine once again and we had one
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View from boat of the best meals so far in one of the resort's restaurants. To rub salt into the wound Friday was gorgeous so we had most of the day by the pool before getting our crossing back to the mainland. We had to stay there for one night before getting the morning train again to continue the trip to Cairns.
BUT......all trains were cancelled! The cyclone had hit the exact area that we'd travelled up through and they aren't running trains again until next Tuesday! We didn't want to stay til then as our final leg is a particularly lovely resort that we'd chosen very specifically to have our last few days there. We checked out other options and ended up hiring a car and drove the whole way straight through - 400 miles in 7 hours (alloneroad + 30 min pit stop). Passed lots of mango, sugar cane and banana farms. We'll get a refund for the train trip so should cancel out the hire charges. Definitely worth it, the train would've taken 10 hours anyway. We're still near to the reef so hoping for another chance to go for a snorkel...... we'll see........!
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Ruth
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Stinger suits
If only we had known you could have borrowed our stinger suits. I'm not quite sure why we kept them. Hope you get some snorkelling in at cairns. Also the gondola and train ride is very good if you have time. Cambridge must be going bankrupt- the other 50 percent of Chinese are over here!!! Have a great time R & T xx