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Published: August 6th 2007
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A Long Weekend in Paradise
After spending one night in our overpriced and not so great hotel in Airlie Beach, we set out for our long weekend excursion at one of the world’s great resorts, Hayman Island Resort located in the far north of the Whitsunday Islands. We had to get up pretty early - I know quarter to six is not that early for most of you but at this point it is pretty early for us. We packed our things and took the ten minute drive down to Shute Harbor to catch our boat to the island.
The weather in Airlie Beach had been kinda nasty for the last couple of days with intermittent rain developing throughout the day. While rain is never what you look for on a holiday, in this case it made for gorgeous rainbows as we rode on the small private resort yacht to Hayman. In a couple of cases, as we traveled through the chain of 74 small tropical isles we got to see a whole rainbow arching over the islands in the distance. To us this seemed like a fortuitous sign that the next couple of days would be
great.
As we pulled up to the island we realized that the rumors about Hayman were true. This island may be the closest thing we’ve ever seen to paradise. The resort has been here since the 1940’s and has been added to and remodeled multiple times to keep its understated grandeur.
As we pulled up in the boat they ushered us on to a small bus to take us to the central complex. From there we sat in nice chairs while we received our keys and filled out our guest registration. We had booked the cheapest room in the resort because we didn’t want to blow the budget but were pleased to find out that they had upgraded us two times. This isn’t the busy season here so we figure they were just being nice. The next step up from our upgrade was a penthouse or a full beach house. Our room was located in the Lagoon area of the resort. As the name suggests our room looked out onto a lagoon filled with lilies, swans, ducks and other various wildlife. Pretty sweet.
It was only 10am by time we got settled into our room and had
a chance to walk around and check things out. The resort consists of a huge beach, a small fresh water swimming pool, one of the largest pools in the Southern Hemisphere (7 times Olympic size), five restaurants, a marina, a nine hole putting green, tennis courts…the list goes on and on. We spent the next hour walking around and getting acquainted with our surroundings. The resort is absolutely gorgeous even with the intermittent rain and high wind. We fell in love immediately.
After a quick trip around the resort we stopped and got lunch at one of the many restaurants. Due to the fact that this was pretty much a celebration of Kel’s B-day (despite the fact that it didn’t actually occur until after we left) I allowed Kel to pick lunch and splurge a bit. We ended up feasting on a platter of fresh tapas and a plate of 18 fresh oysters that were delicious. The oysters in this part of the world are to die for, caught fresh and so they’re both much cheaper and much better than what you get at home.
With very full bellies we set out for some adventure. Our first stop
was the activities center to play some ping-pong. Love the ping-pong as you have read from other blogs. With a few games under our belt we then set off to play croquet (a quick hello to our croquet friends back home, you know who you are). Surprisingly I beat Kel which is odd since I normally get killed by her. And finally to round out the game playing of the afternoon we played some chess while waiting for more fun activities to ensue (the game was never finished as our next activity started before we were done).
At 4pm the hotel had advertised a free drink making demonstration which occurred at the bar in the main lounge. Kel and I figured this could be a fun way to figure out how to make cool drinks for future parties back home and decided to participate. Leaving our chess game behind we sidled up to the bar along with about ten other guests to watch the bar manager demonstrate how to make some cool and some standard cocktails. The really cool part was that we all got to take a sip of each drink and then, if no one wanted the
rest of a drink, one lucky guest each got to take a drink of his or her choice.
The bar manager was not a showman in the Tom Cruise Cocktail sense but he was very informative and obviously knew his drinks. He made about eight cocktails during the hour we stood their. He made a daiquiri, a long island ice tea, a Toblerone, a Manhattan, a Chinese slipper, a Pimms cocktail and a few cool others. Kel and I ended up drinking the long island iced tea and the Manhattan between the two of us because no one else wanted them. Thus before all was said and done we were a little tipsy when the demonstration was over. He was a great bartender and made very nice - if a bit strong - drinks for the class.
We ambled back to our room and rested for a few hours before dinner. Dinner was at the Azure restaurant located right on the beach looking over the crashing waves. The food was amazing fresh seafood. Kel had a grilled tuna steak and I had a paella of Morton Bay Bugs (kinda like lobster). After dinner we each got a dessert
in accordance with our decadent living for the weekend. My lemon tart was great while Kel had a selection of local cheeses which were to die for.
By the time it was all said and done we were exhausted so we headed back to the room to rest, watch TV and play on the internet. The internet here is free which is a godsend after the lack of internet for the past few days. Kel ended up crashing by about 10pm while I stayed up like the night owl that I am. By midnight we were both passed out in the first king sized bed we’ve seen in weeks. Ahhh, the king sized bed!!
Hope everything is wonderful back home!
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Anne
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Soooo going there someday!!
I never knew that place existed. Putting that location on my to do list for this lifetime. Ping pong, chess, croquet...sounds like you will have mastered those on every continent by Nov. Take care, Anne Case