We took the girls on an amazing trip for Term 3 break.....we went to Hamilton Island! Hamilton Island is one of the 74 Whitsunday Islands in Queensland, AU. It was about an hour flight from Brisbane which was quite easy! The only form of transportation on the island for residents is a golf buggy. There was one waiting for us upon our arrival at the airport for us to use during our stay. We rented a great house named Point Blue.....it was huge; just remember that we have been staying in a 3 bdrm apartment for 3 months so anything bigger seems huge!!
On our first day there, we took a huge catamaran to the Great Barrier Reef. WOW! We pulled up next to a stationary pontoon and spent about 5 hours on the reef. During our trip out to the reef we saw 3 whales...amazing!!!
Our first adventure was a trip on a semi-submergable boat. It was very similar to a glass bottom boat but we actually went down "under water" in the boat and viewed from a side angle.
Our next adventure was a "whirly bird" /helicopter trip over the reef. The pilot informed us that it was the same whirly bird that Oprah Winfrey went on....the girls were quite excited to learn this and to share with their Dede (my mom) who is a big fan of Oprah and watched her trip to Australia. The whirly bird trip was amazing!! It gave one such an amazing view of the reef and we were able to see parts of the reef not viewable from the catamaran.....including the Heart Reef!! The Heart Reef is a natural formation of coral shaped like a heart....too sweet!
Our next adventure of the day including snorkeling...all 5 of us. But first we had to get "suited up"! We had to put on a "stinger suit" to protect us from any stinging nettles/jelly fish. The nettles are officially called Irukanji nettles. The stinger suits are the pretty full body pastel suits that we have on. They normally do not have any nettles until the summer months but did not want to take the chance of anyone getting stung. Then, overtop of the stinger suit, we put on a shorty wet suit to keep warm. The water was about 22 C so it wasn't too cold but it was nice to have the wet suit on. We hooked up with a Marine Biologist who took us around for about 45 minutes and showed us all over the reef where we were docked. We saw parrot fish, sea cucumber, christmas tree coral, clown fish, angel fish and tons more.
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| Another version of The Incredibles!! |
The remainder of our vacation was spent mainly on the beach and testing our skill on the paddle boards & kayaks. We also had a great time spotting beautiful birds around the island that, at some points, are quite friendly!
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| First try on the paddle board! |
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| Finally getting the hang of it |
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| Tons of great shells! |
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| First time out....a pro! |
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| This one is for you Christopher & Hayley...looks like one of yours!! |
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| Our buggy...with a seagull |
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| This guy got very friendly during our lunch at the marina! |
It was wonderful...a much needed vacation. Believe it or not, we didn't even have INTERNET!
