Whitsundays: HamiltonWorld

My expectations of Hamilton Island were not great. I thought it would be overdeveloped and overcrowded; that it would be full of hoity-toity, big-boaty non-PLUs; that everything would be hugely expensive. It certainly wasn't cheap to stay there or eat out, but on the whole I thought the place was charming in an other-worldy sort of way. Disney meets Toy Town, I'd say. 

I think this impression was largely generated by the fact that visitors and residents drive around in electric buggies. Kids get dropped off at school in them, and there are even cute 'ute' buggies with little trays replacing the second row of seats. They're quiet, environmentally friendly and provide less opportunity for idiot-macho driving. Many of the buildings, from the airport terminal to waterside restaurants, are a little bit folksy and there are far fewer primary colours than on the mainland. 

 

 

In contrast, the Yacht Harbour Tower overlooking the Marina side of the island and the Reef Hotel in the Resort on Catseye Bay in the northeast resemble Torremolinos-style high-rise tourist nightmares. I was told they were built in the '80s, after which the local council must have come to its senses, although not enough to knock them down. After a few days you can train your eyes not to see them and tilt the angle of your photographs. Or squeeze them like this.

The Tower popped up in this pic, however, without me noticing.

Judging by the huge numbers of buggies parked up, I wonder if most people visit the Whitsundays in winter. This was the main street mid-morning, which suited us.

Hamilton Island is lush and green and a lot of recent development is almost buried in tropical foliage. There's a big architectural statement in Toytown, however, and that's the Marina Yacht Club. Designed by Walter Barda and opened in 2009 by then Premier Anna Bligh, the building combines metal (including a copper roof), glass and wood: I loved the winged roof, the terraces jutting out over the water, and the building's 'mast'. One evening we sat in the bar on one of the terraces drinking Pimm's and alternately watching the sun set over Dent Island and the full moon rising behind us. It was as near perfect few moments as I can remember in a long while.

 

The Yacht Club complex includes 35 4-bed villas with equally perfect surrounds and outlooks. One of these will set you back $3 million.

You often hear the Whitsundays described as a tropical paradise. Hamilton tries hard to live up to that reputation. Another evening we went up One Tree Hill where there's a portable cocktail bar set up to enhance your enjoyment of the sunset. The rising almost-full moon embellished the view in the other direction. Stunning sea, sky and islands pix are compulsory here.

Whitsundays: Whitehaven hype

If you've ever perused lists of the world's top ten beaches in upmarket travel mags, this probably isn't recognisable as Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. Where is the long sweep of pristine white sand? Where are the swirly sandy patterns?

When this picture was taken the sand was littered with debris from ex-Cyclone Oswald and more recent heavy rains. It would have looked a hell of a lot better had the waves not been lapping the high-water mark, but no one ever said to me, 'Don't visit Whitehaven Beach at high tide'. On the plus side, the bits and pieces did create some nice beach art.

Neither should I have visited at high tide if I wanted to see the swirly sandy patterns. I was also at the wrong end of the 7-km beach, the sheltered southern end, whereas the patterns are at the mouth of Hill Inlet. Oh, and I should have been looking down from a plane, ideally. If it had been a seaplane, I could have water-landed and walked at the southern end and then flown over the swirly bits. Did the Whitsundays tourist office tell me any of this when I called them? No.

A friend of mine who sailed around the Whitsundays for a few days on a tall ship was able to climb to the Hill Inlet Lookout – from where she took wonderful pictures of the swirly bits. The tourist office told me I couldn't climb to the lookout on the trip I was planning, but they didn't volunteer which companies offered that option. Like H2O Sportz, for example, who make half-day visits to Whitehaven that include a guided walk up the hill – with information on the history and ecology of the area, which would have been right up my alley. Their brochure says 'times may need to be changed due to tidal changes'. So you can see the swirly bits at their best, right?

Or, you can do a scenic two-hour trip in a seaplane (including one and a half hours on the beach) for $149, which is only slightly more than we paid for a day trip to Whitehaven and Daydream Island with Cruise Whitsundays. If you're planning a trip to the Whitsundays, my advice would be to think carefully about exactly what you want to achieve. Prioritise. And don't try to kill too many birds with one stone.

If you have specific requirements and want go it alone, you'll need a boat. I guess you'd anchor in Tongue Bay* and then walk over to the Lookout. As we sailed past Hill Inlet the only thing I could see were people where I wanted to be.

So, I have to conclude several things. I didn't do enough research on the best ways of viewing the Whitsundays' most famous landmark. I shouldn't have tried to combine it with visits to other islands. (Sack the tour operator!) I know I didn't see Whitehaven at its best, but I have seen better beaches in WA (Conspicuous Beach), Far North Queensland (Cape Tribulation), New South Wales (Jervis Bay), Victoria (Thirteenth Beach) and Tasmania (Bay of Fires).

There wasn't much wildlife in evidence during our boat trip. We saw wallaby tracks in Whitehaven's sand and the real thing in Daydream Island's resort. A couple of Pied Oystercatchers were trying to avoid intruders on Whitehaven; and there were gulls, of course. But we didn't spot any soaring White-bellied Sea-eagles, Brahminy Kites or Ospreys; and we didn't see any sea life. One of our boatmen attributed this to them all taking refuge from the storms. Still?

With a certain amount of disappointment, therefore, I give you my shots at Whitehaven Beach.

 

As usual, I was disappointed to see how much human rubbish there was on the beach. I wished I'd had a bag to collect it.

It makes me angry. I'm sure the large blue lid had been washed up, but the plastic cup must have been chucked at the back of the beach. The only thing you're supposed to leave behind are your footprints. Grrrrrr.

* according to my Whitsunday & Islands Offshore Boating & Recreational Guide you can only anchor at the southern end of Whitehaven Beach and Tongue Bay to the north of Hill Inlet

Whitsundays: which island?

Surprisingly, planning four days in the Whitsunday Islands was my most challenging travel project yet. You'd have thought it would be relatively straightforward: a visit to Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island was a must-do; I didn't want to stay anywhere too large and resorty; boat trips didn't have to include a Great Barrier Reef experience (done that); I needed a good restaurant for my friend's birthday dinner; and I wanted to see more than one island.

One's choice of island(s) will be largely dependent on three things: how much time you have; how much money you have; and which activities take your fancy.

If you're short of time, ideally you need to fly to Hamilton Island – the most developed island and the only one with a commercial airport – which you can do direct from Brisbane, Cairns, Melbourne and Sydney. Alternatively, you can fly (from Brisbane) to Proserpine on the Whitsunday Coast and transfer by bus to Airlie Beach or Shute Harbour, each of which has ferries to several islands.

Accommodation is a bit trickier. There are exclusive resorts that are fabulous but may well break the bank, on Hamilton and Hayman islands. There used to be a Club Med on Lindeman Island but it closed back in January 2012. At the other end of the spectrum are Hook Island Wilderness Resort, which is temporarily closed, and South Molle Island Resort. I suggest you read reviews on TripAdvisor if you're considering the latter. Probably midway on the scale is Daydream Island Resort & Spa. This large resort practically fills the small island but is pleasant enough and more family orientated. There are other hotels/resorts on Hamilton which didn't appeal to me online because of their size and/or price. I realised how good my instincts had been when we buggied over to Catseye Bay on our first afternoon (and viewed from the sea, below).

Hamilton Island has plenty of holidays houses and apartments available for self-catering. We stayed in a newish split-level apartment on the slopes of One Tree Hill above the marina. There were only two-bedroom options, so we had to spend more than I would have liked. It was spacious and nicely furnished, had a great view, a communal pool, beautiful leafy gardens, interesting visitors and a buggy included. Only utility vehicles are allowed on Hamilton: everyone drives around in electric buggies, and these are usually included in accommodation packages. There are a couple of bus routes if you don't have a buggy. If you're planning to walk everywhere, you should know that Hamilton is hilly.

When it came to researching where to stay online, I found the same accommodation options coming up again and again and most of them were too expensive or not my kind of place. So, you have to persevere, trawling through lists of holiday homes if necessary (http://www.hihh.com.au).

And what do you do while you're in the Whitsundays? There are lots of action-packed opportunities as well as sightseeing trips. Think of any water sport, and you'll almost certainly be able to do it. On land, on Hamilton, there are quad-bikes (for adults and children), go-karts and target sports. There are spas for pampering, bush-walking trails and a wildlife park – in effect, a zoo. (If you're a golfie, I'm pleased to say you'll have to go over to Dent Island.) You can tour by boat, sea-plane and helicopter, but, surprisingly, the possibilities are not endless (see below and Whitehaven hype, to follow).

I was told I could book trips when I got there. I ignored this advice, partly because, with so few days on the island, we didn't have much leeway if things were booked up, and it was a birthday treat so disappointment was not an option. Had I heeded the advice, I would almost certainly have done the Whitehaven trip differently, and I might even have hired a small boat. I wanted to go to South Molle Island, where the walks and the wildlife sounded promising, but the two main Whitsunday cruisers, Fantasea and Cruise Whitsundays, no longer timetable a stop there. You can hire small motorised dinghies or larger craft, but you need to know what you're doing – or take along friends who do – and big boats cost, as do scenic trips by air.

As with the accommodation, I found hamiltonisland.com.au steered me in very limited directions – even when I called them. Only when I was on the island did I find H2O Sportz, which offers a much better option for seeing Whitehaven as I wanted to see it. Their trips are only half-day, however, and don't include other islands. I think in another life I'd like one of these, please.

When planning your trip, other things worth noting are...
• some cafes and shops only take cash*. Westpac have cleaned up on the holes-in-the-wall, so take plenty of cash with you if you don't bank with them and want to avoid transaction fees
• not all buggies have roll-down waterproof panels, which is another reason to take a lightweight mac if visiting during the wet
• eating out on Hamilton is expensive, even by Brisbane standards. Expect to pay upwards of $38 for a main course. I can, however, highly recommend barramundi and chips from Popeye's (on Front Street by the marina), a bottle of sauvignon blanc from the bottle shop a few doors along, and a deck overlooking Dent Passage at sunset
• beware sandflies: you won't spot them easily and their bites are almost as irksome as mozzies'
• especially if you're visiting in summer and you intend to spend a lot of time on the water, apply sunscreen regularly and liberally. A hat is essential, and preferably one that stays on in gusty wind
• the ubiquitous Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, while charming, are allegedly able to chew through fly screens if you leave doors and windows open.

The Whitsundays had long been on my list. Whenever I'd previously chosen a Queensland island to visit – Magnetic, Heron, Dunk – the Whitsundays always lurked in the background; somewhere I knew I would have to go sooner or later. A long time had passed in which to form impressions and jump to conclusions. My preconceived ideas were mostly wrong, I'm pleased to say. These islands sprung many delightful surprises.

* if you are staying in the one of the resorts, however, you can charge purchases to your room