Hamilton Island

Hamilton Island is one of the Whitsunday Islands, located in Queensland, Australia. It is where you would travel to if you are considering of seeing the Great Barrier Reef.

According to Wikipedia, Hamilton Island (HI) is the largest inhabited island of the Whitsunday Islands. Despite that, it gives me the feeling that it is actually rather small. It is almost exclusively for tourism. Despite it's size, there is an operating airport, HTI. Qantas, Virgin and Jetstar all service flights from Sydney to Hamilton Island.

Due to its location, it is said best time to visit would be from April to June. After weighing of time factor, and not expecting the daily rain factor, my friend and I had bit the bullet and made our travel in March. Despite it being late March, not only it rained, it poured like no tomorrow. Of the 4 days we were there, as luck would have it, it did not rain on day 4 when we were to fly out. LOL.

I would say Hamilton Island is very touristy, but that would be expected considering it is one big resort, and I suspect probably monopoly by one organisation. Hence, accommodations were expensive, as well as food. However maybe due to cost, or probably of the rainy season, I don't feel it being overcrowded.

On top of that, buggy transportation probably does help too. There are very, very few cars - from memory, it was only the free island shuttle, the airport transfer and a lorry or so. Otherwise, people commute with a buggy. If you stay in the very high end resort - Qualia, the room comes with a buggy, assuming they have included the cost.

There are of course buggy for rent. These little 4 wheels thingy don't come cheap - as of current, 1 hour $45.00, 2 hours $55.00, 3 hours $60.00 and 24 hours $85.00. Of course, the cheapest option would be taking the free shuttle bus. There are 3 different routes, serviced by green, orange and purple shuttle respectively.



We opted for the cheapest option we could find - Palm Bungalows but were lucky to have an upgrade to a room in the Reef View Hotel, overlooking the waters.



Our room was very spacious, with 2 queen beds, even the bathroom came with 2 sinks.



Standing on the balcony, it has a great view of Catseye Beach


... I took some pictures, till a fat bird came around, I was kind of worry the bird would fly straight in to the room :P


Our room booking came with buffet breakfast included. We had our breakkie at Reef View Hotel's in-house restaurant - Pool Terrace. So called as it was next to a swimming pool, I suppose.



I didn't take any pictures on breakkie though. Here's the picture of my first meal at Pool Terrace, while waiting for our room to be ready. I was starving by then, and rain got heavier, so we didn't walk further to have our lunch.


Club sandwich served with chips

Oh, and I just have to put this in...


How often do you see an air-con unit being installed in the lift itself... ?


Side note: Enjoying long weekend at home ^_^