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Published: March 17th 2010
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Reef View Hotel (1)
Rainy day view from balcony - what reef Friday 26th February - Thursday 4th march
Hamilton Island, part of the Whitsunday group.
Hamilton Island is used almost exclusively for tourism.
Hamilton Island is the second largest inhabited island of the Whitsunday Islands in Queensland, Australia. Hamilton Island, like most in the Whitsunday group, was formed as sea levels rose creating numerous drowned mountains that are situated close to the east coast of Queensland, Australia.
In 2003, the Oatley family acquired the resort and expanded developments to include an expanded Marina precinct, a yacht club and a luxury resort known as qualia which opened in 2007-8. The Oatleys own and run Hamilton Island Enterprises which operates the majority of accommodation and businesses on the island. A golf club has just been completed on nearby Dent island.
The region spans from the beaches of Bowen in the north and Laguna Whitsundays in the south. All 74 of the islands are surrounded by the Great Barrier Reef and only eight of them are inhabited.
Whitehaven Beach
The sand on the beach is so fine and pure (99% pure white sand) that the NASA used this sand to make lenses for telescopes (Hubble). Penalties for taking
Reef View Hotel (2)
Sunny day from balcony - Oh that reef!! some of this sand can run up to $5000.
I chose to give the background above to Hamilton Island as it came as a bit of a shock that we landed into a busy resort complex with golf buggies flying around like ants with families going about the daily business of holidaying.
The hotel we stayed in appox. 23 floors rose out above all other buildings, an ugly blemish on the surroundings. However it did give us a great view over Catseye Beach (we were on the 4th floor).
The main reason for being here was a trip to Whitehaven beach. The beach was on Whitsunday island, the next island north east of our view.
We booked the island trip for a 1pm landing on the beach (tide just on the turn) complete with picnic.
The weather was unsettled over the few days here, and just noting that the owners had every enterprise tied up, anything you paid for and did went into their coffers!!. Anyway, first couple of days were on the beach, rain usually came in at about 2pm. We had a couple of evening trips out on the water, one a sailing
Up, Up & away
Looking down on Yacht club trip - guess what no wind to see a sunset and the other was for a 'Dine & Cruise'. We anchored in a bay and ate a 3 course meal (very nice). With good company it turned out well apart from the rain at the end of the evening.
We did hire a buggy for a couple of hours to look round the island (you can do it in 45 mins).
The Whitehaven beach trip was fabulous, taking off from Hamilton airport for a 20 minute flight to virgin white sands and I mean white. As we came into land it was clear that no one els had landed that day and I mean no one. The beach was ours (well for a couple of hours). The sun was hot, especially with the reflection from the sand. A nice picnic was provided with wine. It was a special time.
Take off took us along the sand with only OUR footprints showing and back over Hill Inlet towards civilisation (a brief respite).
For us to be on the most visited stretch of sand in the world by ourselves was a unique experience.
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