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Hamilton Island was the first leg of our Australia trip. It's located in the Whitsunday Island Group in Queensland, Australia.
Friday Nov 9 Suzy and I watched Live Free or Die Hard, and then I watched The Simpsons Movie and then a Japanese film called Life: Tears in Heaven. Combine that with two meals and a bit of sleep, and our flight didn't seem to take forever. I'm not sure why our travel agent flew us through Auckland and Sydney to get to Hamilton Island, but that was our schedule. Our other flights to Hamilton Island were uneventful. We did hit a snag in Sydney as we accidentally left a bag at Customs, but we noticed while still at the International Airport and they were able to find it. (Whew!) So 24 hours and six meals (one at SFO, two on the flight to Auckland, one bagel at the Auckland Airport, one meal on the flight to Sydney, and one meal at the Sydney airport) after we were dropped off at SFO, we arrived at Hamilton Island.
Sunday Nov 11
At the airport there were courtesy buses waiting to take all of us to our respective hotels. We were booked at the Palm Terrace, and it turned out we were the only people on the flight staying there. We chatted with the friendly driver, who turned out to be a ship engineer who was helping out because they were short drivers that day. As we arrived at our hotel, he said something along the lines of, "We'll see if you'll really be staying here," and then got out of the bus to listen in on our conversation with the greeter stationed to meet us. Sure enough, he informed us that we had been upgraded to a better hotel, the Reef View Hotel just up the street. As we got back into the bus we asked him how he knew we were going to be upgraded. He replied that his last two rides had also each only had two people, and both times they had been upgraded as well.
I went downstairs to find out the exact situation with the Internet. At check-in I had found out there was no WiFi in the rooms but there was a hotspot in the lobby. This time I found out they charged AU$10 per hour, which I felt was ok. However, the connection was extremely slow: pings to www.cardplace.com were taking over 1000 ms. I posted some email to family to let them know had arrived safely, did the same on IRC, checked a little email and then logged off. I couldn't take the speed of the connection. For dinner we ate at Mariners Restaurant and were seated outside near the water; we ordered a huge seafood sampler plate we couldn't finish even though it was great, and explored the Marina area a bit. Exhausted by 8:30, we went back to the hotel and crashed out.
Monday November 12
After breakfast we wandered around for a bit and then went hiking. Though the hike was only marked "moderate," both Suzy and I got tired while climbing. While I'm pretty out of shape, Suzy did run most of a half-marathon a few weeks ago and we both struggled, probably due to a combination of jet lag, high humidity, and direct sunlight. Though I don't usually sunburn, I did today, though not too badly. Later I found out that Australia has almost no ozone layer. So if you ever are in Australia, I'd recommend using sunscreen even if you normally don't need it.
We went back down to the Marina looking for lunch, and eventually ended up at Manta Ray Cafe on their balcony right next to the water, where we had a "Reef Pizza." It contained about 8 different kinds of seafood on a thin crust with a sweet sauce. The sauce reminded me vaguely of BBQ or Teriyaki sauce. I thought it was fine, but Suzy didn't like it. We also had a Rocket Salad. Rocket evidently is some kind of lettuce. If we had access to the Internet (I'm typing this in Word in our hotel at the moment and hoping to upload it later at some point), we'd probably know what exactly rocket is. Suzy suspects it might be dandelion greens. After lunch, we tried the Ice-Cream Parlor. Not a really inventive name, but I suppose it works. In the same tradition, the only general store at the Hamilton Island is called General Store. The ice cream was pretty good. Afterwards, we changed into swimwear and checked out the ocean and three pools around our hotel. The ocean wasn't too cold -- it was warmer than a normal California unheated swimming pool, but the weather had cooled greatly, and we were going to get plenty of ocean in the next couple days, so we decided to check out the pools. The pools were heated, and we ended up in a nice pool decorated with large rocks poolside to give it the appearance of being a natural lake. Suzy remarked that something like that in America would never work, as some idiot would inevitably get hurt on a rock and sue the hotel. Buck luckily we weren't in America. After a bit of swimming around, we relaxed in the hot tub for a few minutes. At this point it started raining, so we had a nice refreshing rain shower while in the hot tub, a good combination. For dinner, we had reservations at 7:00 at Romanos, and again we were seated right next to the water. On the way there, we saw a swarm of bats flying overhead, which was pretty cool. We split some lox and a spinach salad, and I had spaghetti with clams while Suzy had pappardelle with beef. The main dishes and lox were great, but the spinach salad was quite a bit too salty. After dinner we went back to our hotel room, where Suzy slept and I finished up the writeup for our first couple days.
Tuesday November 13 We ate at our hotel's restaurant, the Pool Terrace Restaurant, for breakfast. As the name suggests, it's located alongside one of the swimming pools. The food wasn't as good as Toucan's but it was still fine. We strolled around for a bit and then went down to the Marina to await our catamaran. There were about 50 people who had signed up for the day. Unfortunately, the weather at the Great Barrier Reef wasn't ideal, with 20 to 30 knot winds, 3 meter waves on the way there, and scattered shadows, but we had limited time so decided to go anyways. One of the draws of this tour was that it had a platform at the reef called Reef World. It included an underwater viewing area, two semi-submersible subs, along with snorkeling. You could also dive, though we didn't do that so we don't know much about that. For an additional fee they had helicopters which could take you around the reef or even back to your hotel island. The total boat ride was about an hour and 15 minutes long, with about 45 minutes of it in rough waters. They suggested anti-seasickness pills for anyone who wasn't experienced with boats. Suzy opted to take the pill but I did not. The first 15 minutes were great, as we were still sheltered with the Whitsunday Islands. Suzy and I got a seat on the top level which was open to the sky. We met a nice local employee who was filming the day's excursion, then video editing and selling it to all of us by the end of the day who gave us some tips for day. After that, they told us conditions were going to get rough. Suzy and I sat in the middle level in back which was open to the water for this part, since they kicked us off the top level. I was doing fine until we went inside for a short bit to inquire about the helicopter rides. After that I didn't feel too good, but wasn't near the point of throwing up. Eventually, the waves calmed down as we approached the reef. We think because the reef itself prevents waves from getting too strong., but whatever the reason, the waves were very mild at the reef itself. Suzy went to get lunch as I laid out on the sun deck to recover. We checked out the underwater viewing area, which had several different kinds of fish, but nothing more exotic like turtles or rays. Here's a sample picture of what we saw:
By then I was feeling better so I got some lunch as well and then we went on a semi-submersible ride. The viewing room was about 20 feet across but very narrow. Two sets of benches ran the length of the sub, and the windows were only a couple of feet away from the seats. I took some pictures, but because I don't have mad photo skillz, the pictures I got weren't so great, but here are a couple examples: 
It had been cloudy before, but by 1:15 the clouds disappeared and the sun shone brightly, which was convenient, as at this time we chose to go snorkeling. Fantasea has this experience down to a science, with the ability to accommodate everyone from beginners to certified divers. I had never been snorkeling, but they provided a lycra suit (mostly to prevent box jellyfish stings), a life vest, fins, as well as instructions on how to snorkel. In the reef area itself, you could either wander around on your own, or follow their rope courses if you were less experienced. Since I'm not a strong swimmer and had never been snorkeling before, I was glad they had thought of a way for people like me to still enjoy the reef snorkeling experience. We snorkeled for a while and then got changed and ready to leave, as the catamaran was scheduled to take us back at 2:30. The ride back was about as bumpy as the ride out, and I decided to take some of the anti-seasickness medicine. Whether through the pill or the placebo effect or something else, I didn't get seasick at all. After we got through the rough patch, they opened up the top floor, and Suzy and I and a couple other people spent the rest of the ride there despite the strong winds. After we arrived back at Hamilton Island, we tried to get reservations for Beach House, a Modern Australian restaurant, but they were already booked until 9:30, and we didn't want to stay up that late. Instead we got reservations at Red Emperor, a Chinese restaurant. I had never been that enamored of hot tubs in the past, but today it seemed like a great idea so we chilled in the hot tub for a while before coming back to our room to clean up. I wasn't as excited to go to Red Emperor, mostly I think because while I love Chinese food, I've found there isn't usually much innovation -- a sizzling beef plate at one place may have better ingredients and sauce than another place, but in the end they are still both sizzling beef plates. So I was pleasantly surprised that Red Emperor proved to be the most interesting restaurant we had been to yet. We started with an appetizer of duck spring rolls. They were more like a fusion of peking duck and mu shu pork though. First was a piece of duck about the same size as a serving of peking duck. Added to it were a cucumber and a green onion, and they were all wrapped in a mu shu pancake. We also ordered won ton soup, which was mostly normal except there were ramen noodles added. Both were excellent. For our main courses we got a sizzling beef plate and shanghai noodles. These were pretty normal but extremely tasty, and best of all, this was the cheapest dinner we had the entire trip. We had planned to do some Internet after dinner, as we still had to book some events for Sydney, but we were both so tired, we went straight to bed instead.
Wednesday, November 14
We spent the rest of the morning on the Internet. We both had emails to send, I wanted to post the bits of this write up I had done, and we had two events to book in Sydney. We also wanted to get at least a little news of what was happening in the United States. Around 11:00 we stowed away the computer and got packed for a trip to Whitehaven Beach, also through Fantasea. Whitehaven Beach, according to their brochure, is over five miles long and one of the top 10 beaches in the world. We boarded the catamaran at noon and ate their lunch buffet. Yesterday's lunch at the Great Barrier Reef featured mussels and shrimp; this lunch was simpler, featuring barbequed chicken skewers and marinated beef slices.
Fantasea provided several sun/rain shelters, and we grabbed one of them before heading down the beach. A few other people also walked along the beach, but most stayed close to where we disembarked. After about half a mile we had lost everyone else. We walked about another mile before we stopped as it was a fun beach to just walk down. From here, we couldn't see any other people. We deployed the rain shelter, but then found out we didn't have any way to stake it down. We later found out there were pockets at the base of the shelter to put sand in to weigh the shelter down. Well, lesson learned for next time. After not figuring out how to use the rain shelter, the next step was to try and put the shelter back into the bag. The shelter folded similar to how some of the sun shades for cars fold into a small circle. I gave up after about 5 seconds, but Suzy eventually puzzled it out. During this time, a couple birds came to check us out. Undoubtedly they thought we had some food, but they were mistaken. Still, they stayed near us for quite a long time, and weren't very shy. At one point, one of the birds was only about five feet away from us. Eventually though it was time to head back as our boat was departing. In all, we got about two and a half hours at the beach, which was about the ideal amount of time. After we got back to Hamilton Island, we decided to check out Sunset on the Hill, which was a scenic hill named One Tree Hill. It was quite a trek but we decided to walk instead of taking the shuttle. Unfortunately, when we got there, no one was there. Several other guests came and left at various points (most on golf carts which we had declined to rent). Our guess is they had cancelled the event without telling anyone. Since we were there, Suzy and I decided to stay for the sunset. It wasn't the greatest sunset ever, but I learned a little more about what makes a good sunset shot. The best picture I got is here:
We walked back down to our hotel to get ready for dinner at Beach House, and on the way say the bats swarming again. Suzy made me take lots of pictures, but it's really hard to take good pictures of small fast moving bats above the treeline past sunset. Here are the best two I got:
Beach House was supposedly the premier restaurant on the island, so we had high expectations going in. Though it had started raining again, they had put down clear plastic along the porch balconies so guests could still dine there. We ended up at a corner table which faced beach on both sides. We split an appetizer translated as "fruit of the sea" which consisted of:
All of these were great. This was probably the best dish we had on Hamilton Island. For the main courses Suzy ate an eggplant and lentil moussaka and I had a beef tenderloin with mushroom gratin and potatoes. Both were great too. They also served two amous bouches: a seared scallop and tomatillo spoon, and a local fruit smoothie before and after our appetizer. After dinner I was too tired to do anything but sleep, while Suzy packed since she was less tired and we were leaving early the next day.
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