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Traveling to Hamilton Island and Shute Harbor
Our day started early, leaving from Cairns to head to the airport for a flight to Hamilton Island. Hamilton Island is apparently a place for both tourists going to the Great Barrier Reef to arrive from, as well as people heading to Hayman Island, an exclusive island for very rich and/or famous people (rooms start @~$700/night and go up to $10,000/night apparently). The flight we took was on a short propeller flight in a tiny little plane with only twelve rows (eek!). Both the airport we left from (Cairns) and the airport we arrived at had tiny airports with only one runway and only a few planes. In fact, the airport we landed at had a runway so small that after landing the pilots had to turn around and taxi back down the runway itself in order to get to the airport’s gates. And some of the gates were outside - with just a green painted line on the ground to follow.

The trip was uneventful and smooth, which we were super happy about. It took only about an hour to fly from Cairns to Hamilton Island. When we arrived, a luggage cart drove up and we basically picked up the luggage from a giant stack on our own. Then we took the FantaSea express ferry from Hamilton Island to Shute Harbor. The ferry was what they called a “sea cat” or an express ferry that drove extremely fast through the water, shuttling people from one place to the next. When we arrived at Shute Harbor we boarded the Whitsunday Transit public bus until we arrived in downtown Airlie Beach and found our hostel - the Airlie Beach Waterfront Hostel. The hostel was terrible - located above a chinese restaurant and a seafood restaurant that served cheap alcohol, the place was noisy and furnished completely in tile, causing everything to echo. We were quite unhappy with the room and stayed out of it as much as possible. Unfortunately, we weren’t too happy with the town itself, either. The beach seemed manufactured - at high tide it looked nice even though you could tell the sand had been imported and wasn’t natural, but at low tide there was this unnatural beach followed by tons of ugly rocks everywhere. The beach was also quite small. There was a really cool lagoon, though, which I was impressed with - there should be more of those - where you could wade around and swim just off the ocean. Pleasant and safe, it seemed like a nice way to hang out on the “beach”.

Airlie Beach
Other then that Airlie Beach was unimpressive. In fact, it was less then unimpressive. Two of the biggest hostels were situated over very loud bars, which I suspect made for a poor experience for those backpackers actually wishing to sleep. In addition, the bars were sleazy - featuring cheap pitchers of beer and “special events” like pole dancing after 10pm, where folks from the audience can win prizes for dancing almost nude. Needless to say, we weren’t impressed, and having to get up at 7am to meet a boat didn’t make us all that excited about this place. In addition, all the restaurants were mediocre at best and expensive. This was the biggest tourist trap I’ve ever been to. An unfortunate start to our Whitsunday Islands adventure.

Kiana on the Whitsunday Islands
Things improved dramatically the next morning when we boarded the vessel that would take us on an exploration of the Whitsunday Islands over 3 days and 2 nights - the Kiana. The Kiana held 14 people and had cozy but comfortable double-bunk cabins for all, with an ample saloon room for hanging out, especially when the weather was poor, and a top deck that was perfect for enjoying the outside sun (and occasional clouds) while eating a meal or two. The folks on board with us were from Canada, England, Germany and France, and most spoke excellent English. They were all friendly, mostly couples, and most traveling for months on end. In fact we seemed to be the only folks traveling for just two weeks, and people were rather surprised to hear how short we were staying. We ate meals together, went diving together and some folks shared bunks together (though Dave & I had gotten the “private” room, which consisted of a flimsy sliding door between us and the rest of the boat). The boat had two bathrooms which each acted as a shower as well, and the boat was generally comfortable for everyone.

Meals were excellent, fresh cooked daily by a lady named Abbi - a very friendly Australian who was the cook on the boat. They usually consisted of three or four things you could play with - stuff you could make into a sandwich or eat on it’s own, pastas, meats, etc.. There were also plenty of snacks during the day.

Driving and diving were handled by Brent and Dave. Brent was the captain and Dave was the dive instructor. Brent was probably my favorite staff member, though saying so may make it sound like I didn’t love the other ones, which isn’t true. He was always upbeat and understood the importance of comforting those newbies (like myself) who were inexperienced and had preconceptions that everything in the water was out to get us. Or maybe I’m just paranoid. Either way, he was way nice and way funny.

Our First Day
Our first day sailing consisted of a tour of Whitehaven Island, some diving and snorkeling instructions, some playing at the beach and some sailing. Whitehaven Island was by far the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. The pictures of it should speak for themselves, but to be clear, the white everywhere was sandbars and minerals that have gathered to form a fascinating and brilliant spectacle. The sand was actually considered to be the finest silica found on any beach, and was soft to the touch and comfortable to hang out on. We also put on some wet suits and went swimming in what was considered (by some) to be warm water. There was a lookout point at the top of the island where you could view the beauty of the entire island from above. It was truly awesome.

We spent a good few hours sailing as well, and I had to get accustomed to the constant rocking back and forth of the boat. It was very powerful and could easily throw you from one side of the boat to the other with little warning. That said, it was lots of fun to be exploring the sea via a sailboat. Though we used the motor during many portions of the trip, we spent the first day largely sailing with our sails raised, which added considerable speed to the boat.

The first night spent on the boat was, unfortunately, not nearly as nice as the day had been. The rain had come in and the wind had picked up and I had one hell of a time sleeping with the boat rocking the way it was. I eventually got some sleep, but not very much, which made for a crabby Darren the next morning.

All in all, though, it was a great first day hanging out with the new folks on the ship and exploring the Whitehaven Islands.

On our boat: Charlotte, Aude, Celine, Carlene, Steven, Con, Oliver, Eva, Daniel, Jaret, Peter, Frank

Our Second Day
Our second day was by far the most fantastic of all. We spent the day exploring the islands some more (btw, there are 74 islands in the Whitsundays in all). Hook island, and

I spent the morning diving in what had to have been the most beautiful reef area I have ever seen. There were more fish then I could ever imagine existed and the reef itself had some of the most fantastic colors ever. I was very, very impressed that all this fantastic life existed below us and yet it was completely invisible while above water. What a great place!

Then came diving time - my first dive ever. I was a bit scared at first, but found diving to be surprisingly easier then snorkeling. Basically, all you have to do is breath and kick a little (where as with a snorkel you have to kick hard and worry about your mask and snorkel getting clogged up with sea water), and you can see so much more while diving. It’s definitely an awesome experience and I highly recommend it for anyone who has not done it before. I wasn’t actually planning on doing it myself, but once I’d done it I was hooked.

We also spent some more time in the afternoon snorkeling and laying around the boat, enjoying the sun and some off and on weather (it rained occasionally but just for a few minutes, and then the clouds would pass by completely). We saw huge turtles swimming right next to the boat and some whales in the distance. It was a very cool day.

Our Third Day
We went diving again! Yup, woke up, ate breakfast, went snorkeling some, then went diving some more. This time was even better since we were a bit more comfortable, and we went even deeper this time then before. We actually were underwater for almost 30 minutes! It was an excellent experience. I did summersaults and rolls while in the water, for fun, while looking at all the sea creatures. Interestingly, they seemed more interested in me, and seemed to be swimming around checking us out to see what we were. At least the curiosity was mutual.

This was our final day, so once the dive was done, we headed in, packed up, and began our voyage home. It was about a two hour sail back to the main island and we whipped out the real sails to make this part of the voyage home. What fun it was hanging out on the front of the boat getting splashed as we sailed at high speeds! Unfortunately we were greeted by lots of rain on the way back. Made for some great pictures though.

And that was the Kiana - a most excellent adventure on a most excellent vessel with a most excellent crew, on the most beautiful islands I could have ever asked for. Wahoo Australia!!!

Last Stop… Melbourne!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 7:44 pm and is filed under Daily Dose, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.