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Published: March 6th 2009
Our first Christmas in Australia - and what better way to spend it than travelling around the country with family and friends! On December 21 the Barnes family (and Heidi's friend Sme) descended on Sydney to start off their two week whirlwind Australia tour. After 3 days getting over the jet-lag in Sydney, our group of 8 boarded a plane to Hamilton Island.
Hamilton Island is part of the Whitsunday group of islands on the middle barrier reef in northern Queensland. The Whitsundays are a fairly consolidated group of islands so, if you have a boat, its easy to travel between them and see a variety of white sandy beach, reefs, and forests. Staying on a boat is definitely the way to go if you want to see the most while visiting the Whitsundays.
With this in mind, we decided to hire a bare-back catamaran for our 5 day trip. What bare-back means is that we were the only ones on board -- no captain or crew -- just the Barnes' family sailing for 5 days on the reef! Surprisingly, they rent out these boats to almost anyone, no experience required. Thankfully we had the seasoned skipper Mac on
board, so we didn't have to pay too much attention during our 1 hour briefing...
We boarded our 46' catamaran named 'Seaduction' around 3pm, and charted a course north out of the marina. Since our first night was Christmas Eve, we quickly found a nice place to anchor called Cyd Harbour, and started setting up our Christmas decorations and cooking our frst dinner. We came equipped with a small Christmas tree, lights, and stockngs, and had no problem making our catamaran look like a floating holiday house. The sun set over the secluded bay while we watched Dugongs swimming around our boat (Dugoongs are a type of sea cow, or manatee like animal).
Although we didn't wake up to a white Christmas the next morning, we did wake up to a view of white sandy beaches and teal blue water. We spent Christmas morning snorkelling around Langford reef, and the afternoon diving in Blue Point Bay, just off Hayman Island. Unfortunately we don't have any under water pictures, but the corals, fish, and other underwater creatures were spectacular.
In addition to the underwater life, one of the most truly amazing places in the Whitsundays is Whitehaven Beach.
On the eastern side of Whitsunday Island (the largest in the group) is a long stretch of pure white silica sand. We anchored our boat just off the shore, and took our dinghy to a spot just north of Whitehaven beach called Hill Inlet. At Hill Inlet you can hike up a short path to the top of the ridge and look across over the inlet and straight down the beach. Definitely one of the most amazing sights we have seen in our time in Australia.
We spent our 5 days sailing from point to point, scuba diving and snorkelling along the way. Some of the reef highlights were at Butterfly Bay off Hook Island where we swam with huge angelfish and at Cateran Bay off Border Island where we glided over carpets of soft corals and anemones at low tide.
In addition to observing the amazing under-water life, we also set out to catch some. Matt came equipped with 2 spear-guns borrowed from work, and after all the hassle of getting them on the plane (a spear-gun is definitely classified as a dangerous good, even in security-lax Australia), it was a requirement to actually use them and
hopefully catch a meal. We anchored in an un-protected marine area on our second to last morning, and Matt and Greg suited up and set-out in search of lunch. To our surprise, the novice spear-fisherman returned a few hours later looking very proud, and showed off the not one, not two, but THREE large Sweet-Lip Breams that they had masterfully harpooned. We had enough food for lunch that day and the next!
All in all, the Barnes family vacation was off to a good start. With a pretty good tan and a good dose of relaxation, we left the Whitsundays on December 28th and headed to the opposite end of the country - way down south to the island of Tasmania. More to come on that soon….
Matt & Heidi
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