Bringing in the New Year on Hamilton Island

So last time we spoke I had just gone to bed on a boat docked in Abel Point Marina, Airlie Beach. We had spent the night there in hopes of getting some much needed repairs done due to the ongoing misadventures experienced around the islands and the reef. If you’ve not read it yet, well you don’t have to, but it’s half the story.

Airlie Beach…Again (Dec 30)

It seems weird saying it like this, but since it was a little too wet it wasn’t great weather for swimming yesterday. I guess the temperature wasn’t great either.

So since the sun was out this morning we headed back into town for a swim in Airlie Beach Lagoon. It’s been such a great investment by the council. It is always well kept, there are always life guards on duty and it doesn’t cost a cent to use it.

I think they want Airlie Beach to be a town of water activities, but the beach there isn’t actually that nice.

After the swim it was time to head back to Hamilton Island because my brothers and sister in law were arriving. You can entertain yourself for days on Hamilton Island. And that’s precisely what we did.

We started with a swim at the beach, it was a much more pleasant temperature (and tide!) for swimming today. This was followed by a game (or games) of tennis. Happy hour in the pool, which is big, but not quite as big as Airlie Beach before heading back to the boat for dinner and games.

Got time for a quick pin? Just hover

New Year’s Eve on Hamilton Island (31 Dec, obvs)

It’s amazing how good a New Years can be without hype or expectation.

I mean, even at 27 with a 4 month old kid I still look forward to New Years, but it’s different now. It doesn’t have to be something that is planned months in advance. I remember as a teen and in my early 20s we’d start asking: “What are we doing for new years this year?” and “We should go away for new years”. Sometimes we did, and this set the bar really high, but when nothing eventuated it was always a disappointment.

Now I just roll with it and hang out with some friends with beers and that’s pretty good to me.

And that I happened to be on Hamilton Island for it as well was pretty damn awesome.

Our new years started with a cruise out to South Molle Island. South Molle Island Resort has been around for a long time – maybe 30 years – and boy does it look its age! It was empty, the grass was in dire need of mowing, the rooms looked abandoned… and yet the pool is in pristine condition. It was very confusing.

It turns out the resort is still in operation but I think under new owners, even though it looks deserted. So the pool looks great. The beach looks as good as ever. To be honest, with a bit of TLC, and a bit of a crowd it would be an incredible resort location so I’m not sure what’s happened.

We didn’t actually come to visit the deserted resort though. We came to do one of the more spectacular walks in the Whitsundays.

We landed the tender on the beach and pretty well walked around their facilities because some of us have been scolded before. Once the coast was clear we walked across their golf course and began our ascent.

The first 20 minutes were quite shady and led us through traditional Aussie bushland. Then it opened up into what could have been a scene out of Lord of the Rings as the path wound around the other side of the island. This was our first glimpse of the spectacular view that awaited us at the top, but we weren’t there yet.

In all it took about 45 minutes to climb the mountain. And I’m glad it wasn’t any longer because damn, it was hot. Hot, tropical heat. The view at the top was magnificent and the National Parks service had built a viewing platform up there to make it easy. To the east we could see Dent Island, Hamilton Island and Whitsunday Island, plus a few smaller ones, with beautiful and varied shades of blue in the fore.

The west showed us where we had come from, including the path we took, the beach we landed on, Middle Molle Reef and North Molle Island and the mainland in the distance.

After a well-deserved swim in our sexy looking stinger suits and some lunch we headed back to Hamilton to begin our New Year’s Eve preparations.

These preparations were quite similar to other times we’d been on the island. Namely, happy hour in the swim up bar, but this time the pool was probably actually the busiest I had ever seen it. The swim was glorious made even better with beers and pool side acoustic tunes. It was a beautiful day to be outside and in the water.

Dinner was fish and chips and beer and we headed back to the beach to watch the 9pm fireworks, which to be honest, even as a warm up act they were pretty disappointing.

Back on the main drag of the island though where the shops and marina are ,the entertainment was much better. We walked past as a very rad saxophone-ing DJ was playing and came back to enjoy probably one of the best cover bands I’ve ever watched and heard. We didn’t hang around forever though because we wanted to be on the boat for the fireworks.

I’m actually not the biggest fan of fireworks at the best of times. I mean, if you’re going to spend that much money on pyrotechnics you might as well blow something up. Though at least these ones were a marked improvement over the 9:00 ones.

The benefit of not being too entranced by fireworks is I have no problem watching the entire show through my lens while I take on the very difficult task of taking an acceptable photo to share on the internet.

Happy New Year.

Hook Island for snorkelling (Jan 1)

Even though no one was particularly intoxicated, the fact that it was quite a late night meant that New Years Day was always going to be a sluggish morning. Once we were all finally up we headed back to Hook Island (is it quite large), specifically to Luncheon Bay, where, yes, we had a luncheon.

Luncheon Bay has some great snorkelling and I am stoked that my bro was able to get the GoPro working so now I don’t have to describe what I saw. Just look at some damn pictures.

And yep, that was pretty much the day.

Read more: The best GoPro Accessories for Adventure Travel.

Hill Inlet and Whitehaven Beach (Jan 2)

Today was the day I’d been waiting all trip for because we were headed back to Hill Inlet and Whitehaven Beach – rated Australia’s best beach and I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who disagrees.

I had visited a year ago when I was up and just found it breathtaking. Hill Inlet is just spectacular and Whitehaven, well it isn’t voted Australia’s best beach by TripAdvisor for nothing.

We did Hill Inlet first this time because you want to time it just right so that you arrive at mid-tide. The reason for this is because it is the different depths of the sand waves that make Hill Inlet so beautiful. At high tide the entire thing is submerged. At low tide it is just sand. At mid tide you have these beautiful strokes of white sand drifting through green and blue waters.

It’s a nice walk up to the lookout, partly on a boardwalk, partly through shaded bush. It’s probably the best value walk you can do. Going by the effort to view ratio, it’s one of the best you’ll see.

The sun was out so it was hot and we all cooled off before tendering back to the cruiser. Our crew required two trips to get back and since we had a crying, hungry baby with us we went first. You might be thinking “this would not be a good time for the engine to cut out again”. You would be right, and I can confirm that yes, that wasn’t a good time for the engine to cut out.

Which is exactly what happened.

It was only about 3 metres deep where we were so we actually threw the tender anchor out. We tried to start the engine but after a few minutes we waved down some unlucky boating enthusiast to give us a tow in to the cruiser then go and pick up the stranded crew still at Hill Inlet.

The misadventures continue.

Again, I had volunteered to drive (read: hoon) the tender up to the other end of Whitehaven Beach (which is connected to Hill Inlet) where we’d anchor for the afternoon, but of course, for the second time this trip this was cancelled due to technical difficulties.

After putting the tender away we motored up to the other end of the beach because it is a little more protected from the wind. We anchored close enough to the beach that we could just swim ashore, though it was still more than just an easy paddle out. It was maybe 100 metres. I took flippers and a life jacket just because I wanted to use as little effort as possible.

We were on Australia’s best beach so we did what any normal couple would do in a situation like this.

We played grip ball.

I’m not sure if you are familiar with grip ball but it is sort of an Australian institution. It was also one of the Christmas presents I got for K. We enjoyed the sun and the softest, whitest sand in the country and swam back.

What a life hey.

But we weren’t done yet. Back on Hamilton Island we took the jet ski for a spin around some of the nearby islands. It’s a bit of a weird concept because if you think about it, we are still out in the ocean, we just happen to be near an island protected by a reef where there happen to be lots of people. It’s actually a great way to explore the islands because you can take everything in, it’s easy to get (and keep) your bearings, and it is super fun.

Afterwards, being our last day in the Whitsundays I felt it would be rude of us not to have one final happy hour in the pool.

It had been a whirlwind of a week containing many different adventures: some good, some less than desirable, but all memorable. I can’t wait to come back (and very thankful that I know I will be).

Farewelling the Whitsundays for now (Jan 3)

The reason it sounded like I was wrapping up just above, even though it wasn’t the last day was because today was a bit of a non-event. Most of it was spent packing and getting ready to fly back home to Newcastle.

Thanks for having us Queensland, see you real soon. (May to be precise).

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