When you think "Australia" one of the must-see attractions is, of course, the reef. Ryan and I assumed that at some point we would meet a visitor there, so we never actually planned our own trip there until right before we moved away. Of course that meant the season wasn't great, leading to probably our worst (and one of our most expensive) trips. We chose to go to Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays because we thought it was the closest place we could find to snorkel from shore. Boy were we mistaken!
We should have known that leaving for the airport at 4am was a bad start, but the views on the way there were so beautiful that we temporarily forgot our exhaustion.
Unfortunately, by the time we landed the weather started to come in, but we had an awesome apartment to stay in with a great view and some interesting visitors. We booked our trip out to the reef for the next day, did some exploring and grocery shopping, and had a delicious dinner at a Thai restaurant. Hamilton Island isn't very big, so the exploring didn't take long!
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| Hearty breakfast before heading out on the boat. |
As you can see, the weather was pretty nasty! We got on a huge boat headed to "Reef World", and rightly chose to sit outside in the "wet seats" because they were at least in the fresh air. I had been taking ginger tablets for a few hours before hand, and surprisingly, despite the 2m waves and the 2 hour trip, I was only minorly nauseous even though many people were throwing up inside.
When we arrived at Reef World (a permanent dock at the reef with a canteen and change rooms) we got our gear and got ready to go. One lucky part of the day was our turtle sighting from the underwater observatory, but we never saw him after that.
The reef itself was neat, but not nearly as vibrant as we were expecting it to be (I think these pictures have enhanced the colours). The water was murky and there weren't very many fish, but the giant purple clams were super cool. It was also amazing to imagine how massive the reef really is. Even the part we saw was bigger than anything I had seen before, and it stretches hundreds of kilometers. Of course we were in an especially high-traffic area, so I'm sure many parts are way more incredible than what we saw.
My seasickness started to get the better of me after 45 minutes, so we got out and unfortunately I didn't recover enough to go back in. It was also really cold, so it would have taken some extra coaxing! We had a meagre lunch (I couldn't eat much) and tried to warm up and de-nauseate before getting back on the boat.
By the time we left the weather had gotten much worse, which unfortunately meant a rougher and longer ride home. We didn't go on the upper deck this time, but instead stood at the back "out of the rain" hanging onto the railing. The waves threw us around A LOT, so I tried to look on the horizon with focus of steel while Ryan held on to me and tried to stay standing. The crew did their best to bring around ice cubes for people to suck on, which actually helped, but even many of the crew was throwing up. I can't even imagine what it would have been like inside the cabin! I just kept chewing on raw ginger, sucking on ice chips, and focusing hard. Then, finally, we arrived at the dock after what felt like days later!
Needless to say it took me about 24 hours to feel better again, so dinner and the next day weren't very eventful. Since it was raining anyway we just stuck around our apartment, played games, and relaxed. Technically we could snorkel right off of our beach, but that clearly wasn't going to happen!
On the 10th, the day we were due to leave, we checked out and went to the airport, but our plane couldn't land on the island due to the weather. For hours we waited there watching planes try to get close only to turn around again. One or two managed to land, but not ours. Eventually they cancelled everything and told us we were "stuck" on the island for an extra day, all expenses paid! They booked us into a different hotel, gave us a meal voucher, and told us to come back the next day.
It's funny, because that bonus day was actually our best day of the whole trip! I had gotten over my seasickness (which actually came back when we played mini-putt in a lake...) and we just made the most of it.
There was a mini-putt course we had wanted to try, and when we went to check it out they told us we could play for free because it was flooded. They weren't kidding! Beautiful course though, and a ton of fun to play with your ball underwater.
Then we went and sat by the pool for a few hours drinking cocktails. It wasn't at all warm and sunny, but that actually made it fun in its own way. We got a little tipsy, talked about our hopes and dreams, reminisced about our time in Australia, and killed time before dinner.
The next day the weather cleared up and we were able to fly home without any further complications. It wasn't exactly the reef trip we were expecting, but we certainly have a lot of stories to tell!
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