Hamilton Island

Rosie had been agitating for some time about a holiday in Hamilton Island since she'd seen a travel show about it on the Disney chanel. Finally, on April 4 her wish came true and the girls and I left on a direct flight from Melbourne for a 6-day idyll. Peter had 3 days work and Easter weekend while we were away and decided to have his holiday at home in splendid isolation. The Whitsundays and surrounding reefs are quite magical from the air. We arrived about lunchtime and checked out our surroundings including Tucan Tango, the poolside cafe where we had lunch on this and a couple of other occasions. At 2:00 we went to our hotel, a highrise called Reefview and checked in. I was very pleased to find that our room was spacious with a beautiful view. In fact these rooms are apparently the largest standard hotel rooms in Australia. Of course it didn't take long to find the hotel pool, one of three at the resort which we made our own.

Back in the room Rosie saw our first cockatoo at close range - more about them later - and we started to get into island mode ie slow.

On day 2 we rented a buggy, the famous golf-carts we'd heard so much about from Rosie, which are the main method of transport on the island. It was serious fun exploring the island starting with a high point called One Tree Hill overlooking our hotel. We passed a contruction zone in the "suburb" where there are some beautiful private homes on our way to the Marina and the main drag. Even though a 737 full of people had arrived from Melbourne that morning and we knew accomodation was heavily booked, the small island never felt too crowded and often quite deserted.

The pool which became our favourite had an island complete with bar in the middle of it so it became known as the donut pool. It was only one pool away from Toucan Tango where we and other wildlife enjoyed lunch and tropical drinks.

Jessye was keen to ride the outside glass-walled lift (fastest in Australia) to the top of our hotel (19th floor). We did and everybody was terrified looking down over the balcony. Great views from up there but I prefered our more comforting 6th floor.

One of the non-water activities was the tiny zoo called the Koala Gallery which naturally featured koalas but also a few birds, wombats, kangaroos and a giant crocodile. It was also one of the breakfast venues and if you wanted to hold a koala you could have your breakfast there and have your picture taken holding one at 8:30 am (for a small fee of course). We took our own pictures too while the official photographer/keeper was adjusting the koala, a 2-year-old girl called Phoebe, and her camera. Rosie loved holding one so much that we had to go back the next morning and do it again just for her.

Another non-water sport was minigolf which we had to ourselves till much later in our game. It was the lushest, most tropical course I've ever seen. I think Jessye won.

Easter is mostly about chocolate for our girls and this year they were particularly well stocked. I had come back from my NZ trip with a big egg for each person which the girls carefully packed and took to Hamilton Island and Rosie had been squirelling away some tiny ones and bunnies. On Good Friday the hotel replaced the bowls of apples at reception with bowls of small Easter eggs so at every opportunity (several times a day we were at the desk requesting pool towels) the girls grabbed another handful. We had become quite used to seeing the cockatoos on our balcony and started to get quite bold with them. These two factors were to come together later.

Our holiday package included a day-trip to the Great Barrier Reef, an hour and a half boat trip with snorkeling and other activities on offer at the reef and a sumptuous buffet lunch, arriving back at about 4:30. We had put off doing it earlier in the week because the girl at the booking desk said the wind was supposed to drop by the weekend. This was an important factor for me especially because I'm the world's worst boat traveler and will throw up at the drop of a hat. Anyway, as it turned out the wind picked up instead and was not forcast to drop any time soon. While it was not much of an issue in our secluded little island haven, there was a 50-minute stretch of open sea before we reached the relative shelter of the reef during which there were 3-metre swells and the roughest ride I've ever experienced. True to form I made good use of the paper bags as did a few others and the staff were busy scurrying to and fro trying to keep up with demand. The girls were mostly OK but Rosie was pretty scared by the violence of the boat crashing about. I was too busy to comfort her, however. It was every man for himself. If only I had thought to take a seasick pill before the trip but by the time they mentioned them on board the boat it was a bit late for maximum advantage although I did take one then in any case. When we arrived "Reefworld" a platform at the reef, the girls got ready for some snorkelling action and after a while of lying motionless on a deck lounger I was persuaded to give it a go too. We all got in and I tried it briefly but it was too bumpy for me so I quickly got out. Rosie stayed in for quite a while then she'd also had enough but Jessye and Sophie wanted more. Needless to say, the beautiful buffet lunch was completely wasted on me - I had a few bites of Jessye's bread roll. We took a ride on a mercifully stable "submarine" which was actually a boat with a submerged passenger compartment with glass walls for viewing bits of the reef and fish life. An hour or so before departure I took another seasick pill and the return journey was slighly more manageable - no more throwing up but it was still horrible. The girls requested pills this time too. When we approached our peaceful little marina it was hard to imagine what we had endured. Terra firma never felt so good.

On Sunday morning Rosie locked us out on the balcony while she hid the little eggs in our room (she wanted to do the hiding this year). Jessye and Sophie did the searching until all were accounted for then we adjourned to the Koala Gallery for breakfast enjoying some scenic views from our buggy including our boat from the day before looking so innocently inviting in its berth. I felt for the unsuspecting mugs who were about to repeat our experience - 3-metre swells were again predicted. Then it was back to the hotel for another egg hunt for all the kids. We had enough chocolate to make several families sick.

Rosie wanted a picture of us sitting up on the underwater barstools at the Island Bar in the middle of the donut pool so we finally obliged. Then we headed beyond the pools to the beach for the first and only time. It was beautiful lounging on the sand and we all went in for a dip but the bottom was a little rocky so not ideal especially for Rosie. We went up to our room for showers and the girls noticed far more birds than usual on our balcony. Sophie took lots of snaps while I had a shower.

The marina's main drag was downtown Hamilton Island with several very nice restaurants and cafes, some of which were included in our "kids eat free" deal. We went for lunch to one of these, the Manta Ray, and had a lovely relaxing meal in the sun unaware of what was going on in our room at the time. Remember all those birds? Well, when we got back to our room we realised we had left the sliding door from our room to the balcony open and obviously seeing an opportunity, they had invited themselves in and had a party. Most of the uneaten Easter eggs including most of the big ones (luckily the bunnies were in the fridge) and sugar and milo sachets were removed from their wrapping and eaten. They had to open the cupboard to get the sugar and milo out which, according to the cleaners, they do quite regularly so they're not stupid. The girls that came to help us restore normality said they have a few such calls every day. Perhaps they need a big warning sign on the door for us city folk. I thought about taking photos of the destruction but the girls were naturally quite peeved and upset about the chocolate setback so I didn't. Sophie, who had taken many, many bird photos up to that point wanted to delete them all.

Never mind, back to the pool where the violation was soon reduced to a bad joke.

On Monday morning, our last full day, we went back to the Koala Gallery so Rosie could have another hold of a koala, this time Franklin, a 2-year-old boy. Later we returned to our favourite dinner restaurant, Red Emperor, for excellent Chinese food followed by a last visit to the icecream parlour for dessert.

Tuesday was checkout day, sadly, and we had until the bus at 10:45 to savour our last moments of Hamilton Island bliss. The girls posed in the Reefview lobby and I went down the road to return the buggy. At our hotel pool we encountered a possum in a rubbish bin then it was off to the donut pool for last swim and lounge. A fantastic holiday!