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Whitsunday Boat Trip - East Australia
Gap Year Travel Journal

(17th April) Airlie Beach - Whitsunday Islands Cruise
We did the Fantasea Three Island Discovery Cruise out of Shute Harbour. A very early start but well worth it. Our first stop was Long Island, the smallest of the resorts we visited today. The ferry pulls up at the end of the long jetty you can see in the photo behind the two girls in canoes and we had a lovely walk down towards the resort with the most fantastic views of palm fringed beaches. This is a small resort but has all the things you’d expect – a pool, a restaurant, a wet bar, organized events throughout the day. But the best thing about it is the beach and the view. Just look at the photo with the hammock in it. All we wanted to do here was stay in a beach front cabin and laze in that hammock all day – awesome! Since we only had an hour and a half though we decided to explore the island and set off to walk up the hill out the back of the resort. We were rewarded with panoramic views across to Whitsunday Island and Hamilton Island. We were still so excited to see turquoise sea again after the grey seas at Cairns. We had time to walk back along the beach and to sit and have a drink to take in the ambience and decided this should be called Butterfly Island – never seen so many lovely black and white butterflies flitting about over the sea! Our next stop was Daydream Island. I remembered coming here 11 years ago but it has had a huge refit since then and had millions spent on it. The north end of the island is for residents while the south is for day visitors. We had a stroll through the north end and they have beautiful facilities with several salt water lagoons filled with coral, fish, sharks and rays. Completely different to Long Island – much more luxurious but the same beautiful lush island. The three mermaids in the photo are on the north end of the island. Mike is seen here sitting on a turtle in the Australian themed pitch and putt golf course. Our final stop for the day was Hamilton Island. This is the biggest island we visited and the most luxurious. They have an airport here and we watched a Virgin plane take off from our ferry as the runway goes along the coast and the planes come in over the sea to land. They must have the most fantastic views. Hamilton is the largest resort island in the South Pacific apparently. We arrived at the marina where all the restaurants and cafes are. First thing we did was to hire a golf buggy. This is the only way to get round the island. We looked in an estate agents window and saw that all the houses for sale state how many buggy ports they have – not car parking spaces! These things are fun to drive for a little while but Mike got a bit frustrated that they lacked oomph on the hills! I think he wanted to hack round the place but we were just pootling! You can see in the photo of the marina just a few of the hundreds of buggies that are about. We drove up to One Tree Hill and looked out over the 270 degree panoramic views. The photo with the yacht shows how gorgeous and picture postcard this view is. Around the marina we saw the sulphur-crested cockatoos shown here. They are really cheeky – the one hanging on the ropes was trying to chew on the knots! The resort is on the opposite side of the beach to the marina and is huge. It is on the big Cat’s Eye Beach. We went up to the big Reef Hotel behind the resort especially to take a trip up in their glass lift, stopping at 19th floor to see the view over the resort! Once we had taken the golf buggy back we treated ourselves to sundowner cocktails at the marina – it’s just that kind of place really. The trip back to Shute Harbour was the perfect sunset cruise and also allowed us to see Daydream and Long Islands lit up at night. A perfect start to our Whitsunday extravaganza.