Could this be paradise?

Well, it’s as close to it as I can imagine with dense green bush, pure white sands and turquoise water.

I’ve been meaning to write about these beautiful islands for an age but only now am getting round to it.

Flying from Brisbane directly to Hamilton Island with Qantas took just under two hours. The east cost of Australia looked beautiful, the aerial views changing from cityscape to dense green bush, passing over a massive quarry, and then over the edges of the Coral Sea and tiny islands.

I travelled with a few friends and we stayed at a fabulous Airbnb three bedroom villa with views of the marina, Dent Island golf course, other nearby islands and the ocean. The villa was up a hill a short drive away from the small airport and, as the island is car free, we loaded our luggage on to the complimentary golf buggy for the ten minute journey. Great fun.

It wasn’t until I was there that I discovered the island has a large cockatoo population. They’re everywhere. Some people may be put off by this but I loved them. They are so beautiful and very friendly - possibly too friendly!

Things To Do in the Whitsunday Islands

Hamilton Island is beautiful with great vantage points of the ocean and other islands, so chilling and taking in the views may be your main reason for visiting.

And there are things to do for the more active.

Golf: The challenging 18 hole golf course is on its own island - Dent Island.

Watersports: There’s a good choice including windsurfing and kayaking, as well as diving, snorkelling and fishing tours. Catseye beach is a great place to enjoy a day on soft white sand and clear blue water.

Walking Trails: There are several mapped trails ranging from thirty minutes to just over two hours. This handy guide on the official Hamilton Island website shows them all.

Great Barrier Reef: The world famous reef can be easily reached from Hamilton Island. There are options by sea (catamaran/glass bottom boats) or air (helicopter) depending on your time and budget restraints.

Sunrise/Sunset: I didn’t do it, but apparently the walk up to Passage Peak is a great place to watch the sunrise (I saw it from the villa balcony), and watching the sunset from One Tree Hill is a popular choice.

Whitehaven Beach, Whitsunday Island

We booked a day tour of this paradise like island.

It’s a thirty minutes catamaran journey to the sparkling white beach on Whitsunday Island. So many of the beaches I visited on East Coast Australia were breathtakingly beautiful but the sand on Whitehaven beach is the whitest and softest I have ever seen.

It stretches for 7km and is often, and deservedly so, listed as one of the top beaches in the world. According to the information I’ve found, the reason it is so white is due to being made up of 98% silica.

We arrived around 9am and were left to explore as much of the area as we wanted. We watched sting rays swimming in a shallow lagoon.

Cyclone Debbie with winds gusting up to 263 km/h hit the Queensland coast of Australia between March - April 2017, devastating many of the islands. We came across this huge tree trunk that had been ripped away from the shoreline by the cyclone. I imagine it’s broken up by now. It looked like an alien with large antennae, creeping out of the sea - sorry |’m getting a little arty and dramatic, but it was very photographic.

We joined a guided tour to the world famous Hill Inlet Lookout at Tongue Point on the northern end of Whitehaven Beach.

If you haven’t heard of it, you will almost certainly have seen photos of it. And the photos do not lie. The contrast of clear blue sea against the brilliant white sand creates swirling shades of turquoise, encircled by dark greens of the surrounding bush. Stunning.

The guide took us back towards the beach, explaining the various flora and fauna along the way. We saw green ants up close - apparently if you lick their bum it tastes like lime! I’ve got to ask how and why that was discovered?

Whilst the tour company prepared a sumptuous BBQ lunch, we went for a swim. Although not obligatory, we chose to wear the stinger suits provided, as harmful Box and tiny Irukandji jellyfish can be present, especially between October to May, and their stings are very painful.

The smell of food caught the attention of a couple of large lace monitor lizards who decided to join us. They can grow up to 2m long and are also known as lacey lizards. I wasn’t initially perturbed as I have a weird fascination of lizards, geckos and iguanas. However, when the guide told us they are superb climbers and climb up anything, including humans, I was a little more cautious.

The morning weather was excellent but after lunch it turned misty and a bit chilly. Around 4pm we boarded the catamaran and headed back to Hamilton.

Food

We bought some food from a supermarket near the marina, where there are several eateries too. It was the first place I had seen the Australian classic, a Lamington cake. Square sponge cake coated in chocolate sauce and rolled in desiccated coconut then left to set. On my goodness, it was divine.

And that’s it. Three fabulous days in one of the most beautiful places on our planet.

I hope my account has helped you decide if it’s a place you want to visit. I’d definitely recommend it.