6 September 2005 (Day 1)
An early start to our honeymoon. We did statistics for Newington College the night before and then looked for a book for our travels, but that meant we didn’t have as much time as we wanted to pack. Daniel went to bed at 2am, whilst Helen soldiered on until 3am. We got up at 3:30am so that we could get the taxi at 3:50am.
The taxi came at 4am and we went via dad’s to pick up Uncle Brendan for his flight. We saw him off as his plane loaded and we made our way to get some breakfast and then wait at our terminal. As we found out from Brendan that if you’re first in the que, you get your pick of seats on Jetstar flights. We were first in the que and got seats over the wing, with leg room!
We took off on time at 6:40am and Daniel slept (snored!) most of the way, but Helen was too stiff to sleep. We arrived at Hamilton Island early… at 8:40am. The temperature in Sydney when we left was supposedly 14°C, it was a humid 22°C when we arrived on Hamilton Island.
We checked in and the room was ready, so straight up to the seventh floor where we were greeted by the most amazing view looking out onto Catseye Beach and across to Whitsunday Island. We went down to the Tours & Information desk and booked our first dive of our honeymoon.
We walked into the mariner area and had a look around. Having been up for so long, 11 am was time for lunch! We went to the fish and chips shop and bought some, fish and chips, of course! At Hamilton Island they don’t need you to carry your wallet. You can put everything on your accommodation account – just carry your key with you! But this can be dangerous as you just put everything on your key!
We paid for our diving and made a stop at the general store to avoid the expensive costs for breakfast ($27!) and then headed back to the hotel and crashed for a few hours.
When we got back to the hotel there was a bottle of champagne (okay, sparkling Australian wine for the purist!) and some tropical fruit drops and a card from the hotel congratulating us. As we were diving the next day we didn’t drink the champagne then.
The sun and water called us and we made our way down to Catseye Beach. Oh, another thing here, you get a ‘pool towel’ voucher. Give a voucher in at the porter desk and they give you a towel. You use your towel and want a new one, just swap it!
We found out at the beach that the best time for snorkellying is at low tide, which was coming on at 4pm. We went in at 3pm and WOW!
We found coral and started snorkelling around it in about three foot of water. We saw things that we have never seen before, and are yet to identify them. Some things we saw were coral, Blue Spotted Stingray, a multi coloured wrasse (or surgeonfish), a huge sea cucumber, lots of tropical fish, a turtle with a carapace about 1 metre long! There was also a stingray that was about 1 metre wide and had a really fine tail that went for about 2 metres!! An amazing snorkel! We were looking forward to diving the next day!
We went back to the room and relaxed for a while, before deciding to go to Toucan Tango for dinner. Before going there though we looked at the gift shop where they had some collared shirts. Daniel ended up getting one, the brightest one he could find!
Dinner was surprisingly quick. Daniel had a steak with potatoes, whilst Helen had calamari and we shared a rocket and parmesian salad. The price was about $55, which would have been fine if the food was of a higher quality, but it wasn’t.We got back to the hotel at about 8:30pm and started watching CSI, but it wasn’t too long until we were sound asleep!
The taxi came at 4am and we went via dad’s to pick up Uncle Brendan for his flight. We saw him off as his plane loaded and we made our way to get some breakfast and then wait at our terminal. As we found out from Brendan that if you’re first in the que, you get your pick of seats on Jetstar flights. We were first in the que and got seats over the wing, with leg room!
We took off on time at 6:40am and Daniel slept (snored!) most of the way, but Helen was too stiff to sleep. We arrived at Hamilton Island early… at 8:40am. The temperature in Sydney when we left was supposedly 14°C, it was a humid 22°C when we arrived on Hamilton Island.
We checked in and the room was ready, so straight up to the seventh floor where we were greeted by the most amazing view looking out onto Catseye Beach and across to Whitsunday Island. We went down to the Tours & Information desk and booked our first dive of our honeymoon.
We walked into the mariner area and had a look around. Having been up for so long, 11 am was time for lunch! We went to the fish and chips shop and bought some, fish and chips, of course! At Hamilton Island they don’t need you to carry your wallet. You can put everything on your accommodation account – just carry your key with you! But this can be dangerous as you just put everything on your key!
We paid for our diving and made a stop at the general store to avoid the expensive costs for breakfast ($27!) and then headed back to the hotel and crashed for a few hours.
When we got back to the hotel there was a bottle of champagne (okay, sparkling Australian wine for the purist!) and some tropical fruit drops and a card from the hotel congratulating us. As we were diving the next day we didn’t drink the champagne then.
The sun and water called us and we made our way down to Catseye Beach. Oh, another thing here, you get a ‘pool towel’ voucher. Give a voucher in at the porter desk and they give you a towel. You use your towel and want a new one, just swap it!
We found out at the beach that the best time for snorkellying is at low tide, which was coming on at 4pm. We went in at 3pm and WOW!
We found coral and started snorkelling around it in about three foot of water. We saw things that we have never seen before, and are yet to identify them. Some things we saw were coral, Blue Spotted Stingray, a multi coloured wrasse (or surgeonfish), a huge sea cucumber, lots of tropical fish, a turtle with a carapace about 1 metre long! There was also a stingray that was about 1 metre wide and had a really fine tail that went for about 2 metres!! An amazing snorkel! We were looking forward to diving the next day!We went back to the room and relaxed for a while, before deciding to go to Toucan Tango for dinner. Before going there though we looked at the gift shop where they had some collared shirts. Daniel ended up getting one, the brightest one he could find!
Dinner was surprisingly quick. Daniel had a steak with potatoes, whilst Helen had calamari and we shared a rocket and parmesian salad. The price was about $55, which would have been fine if the food was of a higher quality, but it wasn’t.We got back to the hotel at about 8:30pm and started watching CSI, but it wasn’t too long until we were sound asleep!
posted by Daniel & Helen at
5:18 PM
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