Long Island, Whitsundays, December 2014

View from the balcony of our room to Happy Bay

Happy New Year! One of my resolutions for 2015 is more regular updates to the blog (or to get it up to date). For those of you keeping track it hasn't been updated in over two years, yikes! It isn't that we haven't been on any adventures (quite the opposite) but have been busy and behind in sharing it with our friends and family. There have been requests for updates, especially from my Grandma in Oregon who enjoys reading this. I've decided to start with the most recent trip and work backwards. I hope you enjoy and well wishes to you and your family for 2015.

Agile Wallaby

A view to  resort and Happy Bay

Between Christmas and New Year we had a three night vacation on Long Island in the Whitsundays in Tropical Central Queensland. It is high season because of the Christmas and New Year holidays and summer break from schools in Australia. Luckily I found an airfare special several months ago and decided to go for it a book the trip.

We flew into Hamilton Island airport and then took a 30 minute boat ride to our destination of Long Island. Tropical temperatures (30C/ 86F), nice sea breezes, and an amazing blue and turquoise colored waters were there to great us. There were also some local wildlife (wallaby, many birds, and geckos). In the water we were lucky to see some turtles, dolphins, and various fish (from the dock or when snorkeling). For us the main purpose of the trip was to relax and spend time together.

The water in Happy Bay was very calm (a few additional waves with an oncoming boat or jet ski) and quite warm (29C/ 84F) and even hot if you were swimming or standing the shallow water at low tide. So warm when I was swimming in from snorkeling into shore that I had to stop swimming it was to hot for me to stand it anymore!

The tide was quite dramatic varying by as much as 3 meters (9.8 feet) and the water would recede leaving a large section of beach exposed. We enjoyed watching the crabs digging away at the sand at low tide and did some snorkeling one morning at low tide as well.


Happy Bay at low tide

Happy Bay at low tide

Most of the island is a national park (there are two resorts) and there are some trails for hiking. Though most of the trails are within the forest and shaded, hiking anytime during the day was quite hot.


Sandy Bay beach


We did a few hikes including one afternoon out to Sandy Bay which was just over 4km (~2.5 miles) away. Once we arrived at the bay we were rewarded with a beach all to ourselves for the afternoon! The water felt great to cool off in after the hike. A boat or two passed by and a group on jet skis but otherwise it was very quiet and peaceful. 


Mudskipper

We also enjoyed "discovering" a new animal we hadn't seen before, mudskippers. These are fish that are able to walk and skip using their fins on land and breathe out of water through their skin. We were luckily enough to observe three of them playing where the waves lapped the beach or just above the waves on the wet sand.


Batfish

There were plenty of options for other free activities that we participated in including mini-golf, swimming or playing in the water, snorkeling, kayaking, peddling a paddle boat, lazing about in a hammock or sitting on the beach. We could have ventured off the island to Whitehaven Beach or to snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef (both which we had visited a few years back with some friends on our first trip to the Whitsundays). We decided to just stay on the island and do a bit of exploring on our own.  Every afternoon the staff at the resort feed the Batfish (and a couple other fish and seagulls join in the action) at the end of the dock. There were close to a dozen when we watched and they are quite quick, even jumping out of the water!
 

Pandanus trees

Pandanus Bay

One night we ventured onto the hiking trails to go star gazing away from the lights of the resort. The main wildlife we spotted on the trail was cane toads. We ended up at Pandanus Bay and despite some clouds were able to do a bit of viewing with our binoculars or just with our eyes. Wandering around the rocky beach at low tide (with our flashlight and headlamp) we encountered "drop snails" as we referred to them. As we walked across the rocks covered in these snails they would detach and drop off the rocks in large numbers. We could hear them dropping all around us (likely from the light) to hide. The next day on our longer hike we stopped back to check out the beach during daylight at high tide.

It was just the right amount of time for us on the island and a great relaxing trip!