Tropical island retreat

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Our tropical island retreat - the perfect day to spend labour day weekend

Not that either of us really knows what Labour Day weekend is all about, other than everyone gets a Monday off work. But we do know that its a Victoria thing, presumably designed to reward people that work hard - and we both do so, as far as we were concerned, it was designed for people like us to get off to remote desert islands.

So get off to a remote desert weekend we did.

We booked some cheap flights from Melbourne up to Mackay in Queensland on Tiger airways - well, we thought they were cheap until we realised one group of four people on the flight got all of theirs for less than half what we paid for two. They seemed to take quite a lot of comfort from watching our faces, but hey! Actually, the whole flight booking thing was another story - we initially tried to book some flights to the Sunshine Coast with Jetstar who were having a sale - after 2 hours of clicking next, entering contact details, their websites crashing and starting again we finally got to put in our payment details - at which point the website crashed again.

Again we tried - this time the flights had gone up by about $100, so we decided to leave it and booked the Mackay flights with Tiger. By this point, we were both shattered, went to bed and woke up the next day looking forward to our trip to the Sunshine coast, which had now been confirmed by e-mail from jetstar. It was only in the middle of the afternoon when I received the e-mail from Tiger confirming our flights to Mackay that I remembered the Sunshine Coast ones didn't actually go through! Confusing?! Anyway a moan about flight bookings was not the point of this blog!!

This was our inaugural flight with Tiger and they were absolutely brilliant - I can see a few more trips with them in the not too distant future!

So after playing about on the net to see where we could stay in and around Mackay, we found Brampton Island. Its a remote tropical island about 35kms north east of Mackay in the lower Whitsundays and accessible only by boat or light aircraft. As we were arriving into Mackay too late for the boat, we had to take the plane (nothing planned about that!).

Our little six seater PA-38 (I think?!) was waiting for us across the tarmac at Mackay and took us on the 15min or so flight out to the island.

On our plane, we were joined by Daryl (who acted as co-pilot) and Katrina (who was petrified of being in such a wee plane anyway - and seemed to be even more so when her husband sat in the co-pilot seat!). They both became great company over the weekend.

So we arrived into Bramton Island airstrip - a bus was waiting to pick us up from the plane (and drive us the 20 second drive to reception to check-in!). Our first impressions were of shear excitement - never before had we seen water and beaches this colour and it was roastin hot but a light cool breeze was blowing - totally awesome!

As we walked to our room, folk were drinking cocktails by the pool, others groups were having a bottle of champagne on their balconies - this totally fitted my definition of what labour day weekend was all about!!

Of course, it was no time before we were also in the pool sipping cocktails and gazing out at the Whitsundays and the outer parts of the Great Barrier Reef.

The island was all about couples, walking and water sports - we were the last to leave the bar on the first night (at about 10pm!).

We arrived back in the room to find another guest sound asleep - a four legged guest with a little tongue thing apparently used to catch flies - lovely. Actually, it was almost worth it to see the look on Claire's face who had been spending the day making hissing noises at me every time we walked by a bush.

Not really having been in the situation where we were forced to share our bedroom with a lizard in the past, we returned to the bar to ask if this was part of the remote island experience. We were informed that it was, and that it was actually a "friendly creature". At this comment , I considered what else might be on the island that wasn't such a friendly creature.

We returned to the room and the thing wasn't to be found anywhere. So Claire cuddled into bed, having now put on a hoodie with the hood pulled up tight.

We also decided that the temperature in the room wouldn't have helped - so from then on for the rest of the weekend, we had the a/c set at 16 degrees.

We went a hike the next morning to the top of the island to soak in the views. Really quite unreal. It did take a while to get used to the seemingly millions of things that run out in front of you when "bush walking", and we did come face to face (well foot to face) with a fairly large and fat sand lizard thing - oh, and thee two biggest spiders we have seen so far. But - thankfully no snakes, which Daryl and Katrina had found on several occasions by this point!

We were also reliably informed (by the general manager’s wife who we met on the flight from Melbourne!) to believe that there were koalas and kangaroos on the island - but, despite my best efforts, we have yet to see either in the wild! It is going to be my Easter ambition to find a kangaroo at the next long weekend - none of this hunting for the Easter bunny thing, a Kangaroo will do me fine!

The afternoon was just unreal - we booked onto a jet ski safari, which I had my reservations about it has to be said. I'd heard in the past that doing these things in resorts was fairly boring after 5 mins or so as the power in the jet skis was governed right back - if these things were governed, I would not be riding them without the thing on it!!

The speed of them in flat water was just amazing - I got it up to 58kmph but with Claire at the controls, she got it up to 68kmph - which felt quite fast!! Once we had all got used to playing about in the calm water Daniel, our guide, took us on "safari". It should probably be pointed out that Daniel turned out to be a 22 year old adrenalin junkie and, much as he was very cautious and took us through all the safety stuff and all that, when he got to lead the group there was no stopping him. We turned out of the bay and headed up the channel into the Coral Sea. It was blowing a steady 35kts (apparently) and had been for the past week or so - so the waves were serious - like really serious.

The first time we headed out to sea - Claire was at the controls and I was hanging on for dear life in the back. It was unreal - the waves were about 10ft high, which meant that the jet ski was, on occasion, travelling for about 20ft through the air after jumping over one. I was watching Daniel in the distance getting some serious air and really, would have been quite happy if he had turned back at any point - but he didn't seem to be, he just kept going into rougher and rougher seas!

So what if I fell in;

- one, it would have been almost impossible to get back onto the thing (thats if Claire even noticed that I had fallen off the back which I doubt due to the amount of more height she would have gotten from the jumps!)

- two, we were in shark infested waters and would have probably been eaten alive if a box jellyfish hadn't got you first

I really thought sitting on the beach with a cocktail watching would have been a lot more fun!!

We finally did head back - and had a chill out on the boat. I have to admit, when we got back - thinking back on the wild waves was quite amazing - so I was thrilled to bits when Daniel suggested we go the other way round the island, where the waves were "much better for jumping over" - and I was driving this time!!!

I made a mental note not to bottle it - and just have fun. And fun we had - it was defo a lot more fun driving than sitting on the back trying to avoid looking for sharks.

The sea was a lot rougher this time - but the waves were a bit more rollie - and the jumps the thing was doing were really quite awesome! It was fab!!!

Claire had another shot, and managed to chuck us both off the side of it (into the aforementioned shark infested waters!) - she maintains that she meant to do it because I was being cheeky with regard to her jetski driving skills, what she doesn't realise is that I will never forget the look on her face when she realised she was going to actually fall off it!

Soooooo much fun - like really soooo much and we both are desperate to do it again somewhere!!!

I'll let Claire pick up on the rest of our weekend and its now 11pm and I'm knackered!!

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Photos

The view from the top
It almost looks not real - but it was!

Welcome to Queensland
Needless to say, we both planned to wear long socks all weekend

Arrived!!
The "airport" on Brampton Island

View from our room
Our own beach!

It was the tropics after all!
This was as close as it came, thank fully!

View from the top of the island
This was the most gorgeous place I've ever seen!

The resort
From the top of the island

The seapool
Chillin with some cocktails!

The beach hut
Where you could book all the watersports