Return from the tropics

Well we're back after an absolutely excellent week at Hamilton Island .... exactly the type of experience we were hoping for when we moved to
Australia over a year ago. The island as I hope the photos show is just as you would expect a lush tropical forested island would be... its hard to describe just
how beautiful and unspoilt it is. After a 2 1/2 hour flight from Melbourne we started the week exploring the two main parts of the island, the marina side & the beach side.
We were staying on the beach side and had a view straight over some gardens onto the bay. The marina is full of expensive yachts and speedboats .... maybe one
day, as well as the main shops & restaurants. As we settled in we planned some excursions and booked the kids into the excellent child care there for a couple of mornings (so the adults could do some things on their own !!).

There were loads of things to do on the island and there are excellent views all over the place. One of the great things about the island is the amazing wildlife just running around the place. We literally were tripping over the stuff... we fed possums, lorakeets, cockatoos and saw huge bats, butterflies and iguanas over a metre long running around one of the swimming pools ! The water in the bay was 24 degrees C so it was very easy to snorkle above the reef which was only about 200m out to sea. Virtually as soon as we put our head in the water we ran into a metre long turtle eating sea grass and then loads of small sun rays floating by (not the Steve Irwin death variety), not to mention loads of different types of coral fish.

Our main trip (as you can see from the pictures) was to Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday Island by seaplane. We flew over the Great Barrier Reef first and then circled back to land on the sea just off the beach. We had champagne and fruit on the whitest, softest sand we've ever seen. Whitehaven is a national park and their is no development allowed so its absolutely pristine.

Something a bit more weird was the gun range on the island where for the first time ever I held and fired 18 live rounds off a .38 calibre gun (with a laser eyesight). It was a surreal experience loading and firing the type of gun that you see all the time in US cop movies. I also held a .44 magnum like dirty harry's but didn't have a go on that one. It was amazingly simple to use and much more sensitive than I imagined. Scarry really.

The whole trip was something we'll definately do again at some point in the future and if anyone reading this plans a trip to Sydney or Brisbane then its a very short hop to get to the Whitsundays and we'd highly recommend it. Just amazing.