Whitsundays and Airlie Beach
Whitsundays and Airlie Beach
Long Island, Dent Island, Hamilton Island
Originally Port Molle, unromantically renamed by explorer Matthew Flinders, Long Island is just that - 11kms long and more than 1.5kms wide. Palm and Happy Bay are the nearest safe anchorages to Shute Harbour and therefore a popular spot for yachties. The newest addition to the Whitsunday islands resorts is Paradise Bay. Recently revitalised, Paradise Bay, on the southern tip of Long Island, is a unique no phone/TV zone for the ultimae back to nature holiday. On Long Island there are 20km of bushwalking tracks which are considered by many to be some of the prettiest in the Whitsunday Island group. The three resorts on Long Island are small and unpretentious, but offer all you need to fulfill a tropical island holiday dream.
Tucked alongside Hamilton Island, Dent Island is famous for its residents, Bill and Leen Wallace. Now in their 90s (but looking and acting 30 years younger) the Wallaces moved to Dent in 1952. Visitors cruise across From Hamilton to visit the Wallaces and their coral art gallery.
The hub of the Whitsunday Islands, Hamilton is a small town and port with an international airport. The range of accommodation and entertainment on Hamilton appears limitless. Reef trips, helicopter joy rides, game fishing, parasailing, scuba diving and lying on the beach are just a few. You can get married, honeymoon, move into a house and live on Hamilton Island or just visit for a day. Either way, the options are boundless.
Whitsunday Island, Hook Island: Known the world over for its spectacular beaches including the 6kms of sweeping, soft, white sands of Whitehaven, may yachts anchor in the spectacular bay. Uninhabited Whitsunday Island has all the tropical island ingredients. The air, perfumed by the jungle, is so sweet you could eat it. Campers love Whitsunday Island as there are sites for every mood from the beaches to the rainforest close to a fresh water creek.
Two magnifecent fjord-like inlets, Nara and Macona, cut into the southern end of Hook Island to provide a spectacular anchorage for yachts. Boaties refill their water tanks from cascading waterfalls. The diversity of coral on the fringing reefs on the northern shores provide some of the best diving and snorkelling in the islands. Hook is rugged and a true wilderness island. Hook Peak, at 459m, is the highest mountain in the islands. One of the few walking tracks leads to Butterfly Bay named because of its shape andthe butterflies which swarm around its shores. There is a low-key resort on Hook, an underwater observatory and camping is permitted at several sites around the island.
