May 3rd 2003, was a special day, 20 years later, we fast forward to today, celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary on Australia’s Paradise Island. The last 20 years have been a blast, with each year going so fast and Belinda not knowing what I had planned for our week’s adventure. Keep reading to see how this surprise getaway unfolded and our time away.

Text Message:
Get excited as your adventure begins today, 
As we have a full week planned in May,
Celebrating our commitment of 20 years,
You have riddles to solve as the date nears,

What are we doing, you might ask,
Get started today to get the next task,
Each puzzle will give you a clue,
Join the pieces, and the result will give you a view,

Solve the first riddle, for your adventure awaits,
Remembering our journey as best mates,
Now it’s time for more fun, and enjoy the ride,
Sit back, relaxing with my beautiful bride,

So, what’s this all about? On the 1st of April 2023, Belinda received her first riddle to start the hunt. Each day a new riddle was sent for Bel to solve. Once the riddle was solved, the answer would reveal the location where to look for a piece of a puzzle, with the finale being to complete the puzzle, which would detail the activities for our week away.

HAMILTON ISLAND, HERE WE COME.

Part of the Whitsundays and in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef, Hamilton Island is one of Australia’s most spectacular and sought-after holiday destinations. On Hamilton Island, you’ll be surrounded by pristine white beaches and a kaleidoscope of coral and marine life. Hamilton Island is a perfect base for exploring the Great Barrier Reef and world-famous Whitehaven Beach.

There’s plenty to do, enjoy a wide selection of bars and restaurants, an abundance of water sports and activities, day trips, pools, ATVs, and Go-karts, for keen golfers, you can visit Dent Island to tackle the 18-hole championship golf course.

Our early morning kicked off around the 4:00am mark to head down to Adelaide Airport as we embarked on our first leg to Hamilton Island. Arriving in Sydney, we ate, sat around, shopped, and the time had come to jump on the next plane. Having completed TrueGrit the day before, I think this worked in our favour just to laze around the airport and somewhat relaxing but keen as to get to our destination.

Sitting in the seat, I felt the air pressure change in my ears and looked at Belinda saying we must be close; I think we have started to descend. Not more than a moment later the announcement came over the airwaves, this is your pilot speaking, please return to your seats and strap yourself in as we make our descent.

TOUCH DOWN. What a unique arrival as the airstrip is the length of the island with water on both sides, it will be a very interesting take-off. Walking across the tarmac into the airport (hmm) well that might be going too far, it was more of an up-market professional pergola, and even the luggage carousel was outside 😊. Bags all tagged (even with a personal touch), a quick spin around to the buses and what a funny sight to see was all the golf buggies lined up for the keener peeps, but our shuttle bus was soon taking us to our resort.

The staff were all fantastic, very friendly and said many times, sit back and relax, you’re on holiday.

With the key in hand, we entered our accommodation, staying at the Palm Bungalows, a single room with everything you need, including a little kitchenette. Bags unpacked, it was time to head out for a walk to get our bearings down to the resort community which has 2 large swimming pools, a bowling alley, table tennis and Sails restaurant, with the beach 20 metres away. Soon enough we were down in the Marina Village, which is where you will find all the restaurants, shops, the IGA and plenty of boats and more golf buggies.

Our first evening in Hamilton Island saw us sitting around listening to live music while eating Fish n Chips and enjoying each other’s company. Looking around in the crowd, everyone just had a great time with a great atmosphere.

Our first day, we walked up to the Reef Poolside Restaurant to enjoy our breakfast and listen to the corella’s squawking to get a piece of toast or 2. We walked down the road to pick up our golf buggy for the day as we wanted to tour the island and do a little bit of shopping. We cruised around in our golf buggy feeling the cool breeze blowing our hair, stopped at one of the many lookouts and even gave the girls back home a quick Facetime call 😊. Soon enough, we headed out again across the island to park so we could go for a hike to Coral Cove, where the giant swing is placed on the beach for those magical photos with a perfect backdrop.

Our first day was awesome and we got to drive around the island, which allowed us to plan for the week ahead, but as our accommodation is so close to the Resort Pool, Beach and a 5-minute walk to the marina, I would not have hired the golf buggy for a full day, we probably only needed the 4-hour option.

Our day finished with us completing a Core workout at a park, looking back at Cataseye Beach with a couple of wallabies taking in us as their views, followed by dinner at the Marina Tavern.

Day 2, Our Great Barrier Reef cruise departed this morning around the 9:15am mark, everyone bustling around to get a seat and then listening to the staff onboard with safety briefings, upsell adventures and how the day would flow, finally with the captain advising you won’t get much better days than today, it’s in near perfect weather conditions. The cruise out to Hardy Reef was approximately 80kms (45 nautical miles) so there was a little time to kill but the crew had it under control with a morning tea and plenty of the upsells to go and find out about, these included – snorkelling guided tour, scuba diving, helicopter ride and a couple of others.

Arriving at the reef was the giant pontoon, it was a site to see definitely, and I did not really know what to expect but it certainly was very functional, as we had chosen to jump into a helicopter, this meant you still had to be dry so we were unable to jump straight into the water but I think this worked in our favour to be honest, as we noticed 100 people all rushing to get their swimwear on and heading to jump in.

Our Day’s events looked like this:

• Once onboard the pontoon, we found our way into the underwater viewing platform, this is just to get you excited about the rest of the day.

• After a small heart attack, where I thought I had missed our transport rig out to the helipad pontoon, we soon embarked on the small boat that transported us out to the helipad. After the safety instructions were advised we were soon in the air, taking in the breathtaking views of the Hardy Reef, which included the heart reef.

• Staying with the keeping it dry theme, we headed down into the semi-submersible submarine, which took us right up to the edge of the Reef, this was our first real look at what the reef has to offer with the many types of coral. TBH, most of the time it looked like a bunch of twigs in water mostly and as it was double-glazed windows, the images and video doesn’t present it well.

• It was time, we headed back on board to eat some lunch and then jumped into our stinger suits, threw on the life jackets, strapped on the masks and flipped on our flippers. Before we knew it, we were snorkelling in 25-degree water alongside the only reef visible from space. Belinda was more nervous than I was, but I had to drag her out of the water, the marine life, both coral and fish, were amazing to see. For the video(s) click here.

Overall, this day was spectacular, it’s a full day, the staff really are there to help you, there are additional options if you wish to make it super special, you get morning/afternoon tea and lunch supplied, no equipment necessary and heaps of fun.

Day 3, Put on your golfing shoes as we jumped onto the ferry and headed over to Dent Island to tackle one of the most challenging golf courses in the world, but some would say it’s not all about the golf but the spectacular views of the surrounding Whitsunday Islands and the Coral Sea.

On arrival, we were greeted with a lovely towelette to refresh ourselves before heading into the clubroom, where we were then requested to head into the pro shop to pay our fees and jump into our cart for a fun-filled day, well it started out positively.

Now, we had been speaking to a couple of golfers we had crossed paths with a few days ago and they advised to make sure we had plenty of golf balls, with one guy reporting he lost 36 balls in 1 round of golf, we will be right, I brought 9 for Belinda and 3 for me….

Heading down to the 1^st tee block, we cross paths with a little green tree snake, but it gave us a little fright due to the warning on our GPS TV screen in the buggy that advised us of poisonous snakes on Dent Island, let’s say we weren’t willing to take too many chances to when we saw this snakey snakey.

A beautiful windy day was spent out on the golf course and considering Belinda had not hit a golf ball for 4 years, she was the star of the day and always was going to be. The course is a challenge with small greens to hit, slow greens and if you missed the generous size fairways, the cut was a couple of inches thick and then a wall of sawgrass – equates to lost ball, with the back 9 harder than the front.

Our lost ball tally ended up being 6 for me and 4 for Belinda, but we found that many while trying to locate my balls we ended up not bad in our own ball tally.

After a relatively long day on the course, it was time to freshen up and head on out for dinner to celebrate our Wedding Anniversary. I had booked us into the Beach Club Resort for a 5 Course degustation poolside dining experience. This was bloody fantastic, sitting there next to my beautiful wife with her face glistening from the blue lights and candle lights while trying 5-star food. Every course was awesome, with your taste buds having a party in your mouth and wanting more.

Day 4, We headed over to the Reef Resort, where we devoured a big breakfast to ensure we had refuelled our bodies for the morning we were about to embark on. We had decided to put on our walking shoes, water in hand and hike up along the icons trail to a breathtaking viewing platform known as Passage Peak. A very pleasant hike up the many stairs and after approx. 40 minutes we had reached the highest point of Hamilton Island.

On the way down, we stopped at a small sign that indicated to continue to South East Head. Trekking through the wooded terrain, it was somewhat odd when after being shaded by the protection of the pines, we walked out into what can only be described as Hamo’s dessert of black boys. Weaving along the path, we found our way to the 3^rd Icon on the walking trails – the Giant Chair.

We only had one way to go, and that was forward, continuing our hike across the mountain range, crossing a small river, passing a clearing and arriving at the perfect paradise beach, this would bring us to the 4th (and last) icon on this trail – The Hammock. After a small break and admiring the beach, coral and just the general serenity of the surroundings it was time to start the trek back.

Our trek took approx. 3hrs and hiked a total of 10kms.

Now it was time to get in the fast lane as we jumped into an ATV to explore the lesser visited parts of Hamilton Island, strap in, sit back and enjoy the ride and the magnificent views of the Whitsunday Islands. We ventured deep into the bushland and found our way down to the secluded beach at Coral Cove, this was our second visit here, but we didn’t mind at all. Our guide on the tour was very informative and gave us plenty of history of the island.

Day 5, We rose early, which is easy to do given the perfect weather, went and enjoyed another breakfast at the Reef Resort before heading down to the beach, where we borrowed a 2-person kayak to paddle our way across the bay and look back at Hamilton Island. Unfortunately, as we did not know how dry we would stay, neither of us were confident to take out mobile out with us for any photos – I guess you will need to get to Hamo yourselves to have a look from the water.

If the ocean wasn’t a good enough reason to get wet, we headed to the resort pool and went for a dip, before sunbaking poolside till I started to get a little bit crispy.

After an actioned packed week of fun and adventure, there is no better way to spoil yourself than with a full body massage at the Island’s exclusive retreat, this is exactly what I had booked us in for – 2 Hours of pure relaxation.

This was the perfect way to finish our holiday.

A couple of Honest Reviews

Accommodation: Set in lush, tropical gardens, and with a breezy coastal style, the Palm Bungalows are the perfect place to relax, unwind, and explore everything that Hamilton Island has to offer, we had number 37, which was 50 metres to the beach and resort pool. A small 5-minute walk to buffet breakfast at the Reef Resort and about an 8-minute walk (up and downhill) to the marina area.

Included in the Booking
– Return Hamilton Island Airport/Marina shuttle bus transfers.
– Use of catamarans, windsurfers, kayaks, stand-up paddleboards and snorkelling equipment.
– Use of Island Shuttle
– Use of gym, spa, sauna & tennis court hire

Transport: Being car-free gives Hamilton Island a very unique, relaxed and tranquil ambience. And despite the lack of cars, it’s also still incredibly easy and fast to get around. A complimentary bus service operates every day, from 7.30am until 10.45pm, between the Resort Centre and Marina Village.