Fantasy Island

We were recommended to visit Hamilton Island, after Reefworld, the catamaran dropped us at the island. We learnt that originally it was known as a Passage Island and it was used firstly they had sheep on the land. In 1922 the land was taken over by another person for cattle grazing, in the mid 40's someone else took over the lease and it wasn't until 1976 that Mr Keith Williams became involved in the island now called Hamilton. In 1982 Mr Williams commence building his dream, 2 years after he opened the place to the public, but development and building kept on going and forging ahead. 70% of the island is still national park. There is an airport built on reclaimed land, the marina has been completed dredged and the resort is on the eastern site.
Hamilton Island is the major resort in the Whitsundays and the largest offshore island resort in Australia.
The place is magnificent, there are only few cars in the island, some shuttle buses and hundreds of golf buggies, we ended up calling the place "Toon Town".
The Hamilton Island Outrigger Cup was on and the place was very busy, we found a nice pub, had some drinks and had dinner.
The next day we explored the island and found lots of breathtaking views and dwellings, the marina was spectacular with all of the yachts, we even picked ours. It is a very unspoiled place with a large variety of birds. The man-made landscape through out the island is just beautiful unfortunately, late in the afternoon we had to stop dreaming and went back to the caravan park and sleep in the off road granny flat.

Hamilton Island

FINDING NEMO

After our brilliant experience from the air we could not resist to go and find Nemo, we went on a trip to Reef World on The Great Barrier Reef. We went in a nice and big high speed catamaran they offered us morning tea and lunch, we stopped at Hamilton Island to drop off and pick up some passengers, it takes about 3.5 hours from Shute Harbour to the Pontoon at the Barrier Reef.
During the 4 hours that you spend on the pontoon you have the option of snorkelling, riding a semi-sub or simply wonder around being part of living nature. We did a guided snorkelling tour because we had no idea what was all about, also Rosario was very scared and needed to gain some confidence; at the end it was worth it because the instructor who is a marine biologist gave us a very good explanation of corals and marine life.
It is amazing to see the different types of fish, the corals, gigantic clams, a marine turtle and we even touched some of the big fish and they were not even scared, we bought a waterproof bag for the camera and Gabriel enjoyed taking lots of underwater photos which you can see if you click on following photos.
PS. We couldn't find Nemo, the turtle told us he went to Cancun, Mexico.

Barrier Reef Under the Water