WanderLiz

12/15/2024 - 12/19/2024 @ Hamilton Island

Accommodation: Beach Club Hamilton Island

Activity: Full Day Sail And Snorkel Whitehaven & Chalkies Beach Cruise

The Beach Club was amazing. The hotel and grounds were super nice and clean. The staff was amazing. The Beach Club offered free SUP, Kayak and other rentals. We were too busy during the days to partake but watching other people in the bay was awesome. Wallabies were everywhere! They also never ran away from people. We snorkeled around Whitehaven, seeing amazing coral and a giant sea turtle that didn't seem too bothered by all the people snorkeling around him. The Chalkies Beach sand was some of the softest I've ever felt and whitest I've ever seen. It also got everywhere because of how fine it was. It was great to relax on the beach after snorkeling. Jordan and I snorkeled a little more at the beach but didnt see much. Most people laid out on the beach, played cricket, or in the warm water or had fun jumping off the boat. It was fun to people watch.

12/17/2024 - 12/18/2024 @ Hamilton Island

Accommodation: Reefbed Under The Stars over the Great Barrier Reef

Activity: Scuba Diving

What an amazing experience! We stayed overnight in canopy type beds on the boat below. Right when we arrived on the boat we went right into our first dive. It was slightly chaotic because of the amount of people. We also received a confusing note from our hotel (the Beach Club) that they would bring our bags on a separate boat for our overnight stay. That turned out to not be the case and we had only a small bag of things we need right away. The staff on the Reefbed boat was incredible. Once they knew we didnt have our bags and the situation they immediately contacted the hotel and had them send them via helicopter and we received them by the time we did our second dive.

First dive, was off the Reefbed boat and we were swimming against the current. The current was pretty strong and it was hard to stay with the group. We saw amazing coral and bright parrot fish. I did get slightly distracted by a fish and then was quickly swept away from the group. Very quickly I wasn't able to see anyone anymore and had to surface slightly before the dive ended. A women on a paddle board was right there when I emerged and she dragged me to small boat and the man from that boat lifted me onboard and took me back to the larger Reefbed boat. All amazing. The second dive we went with the current and it was incredible to just float around the coral, checking out the amazing fish. I just feel so relaxed when I'm under the water.

Since we were staying overnight all of the day guests left in the evening and we were able to snorkel around the boat with only about 20 people that were on board. As night was falling we could see a storm coming in. We had an amazing 4 course dinner inside the boat as it began to rain. The rain was actually great because it cooled everything down, which was great when we were sleeping under canvas on top of the boat.

In the morning as soon as the sun was coming out it got very very warm in the beds and everyone was waking up, or at least half opening their canvas beds to try and cool themselves down to sleep a little longer. Before the day trippers came out on the second day (the day we left the Reefbed) we did a snorkel safari where they boated us out a bit from the boat the floated with the current back. Again we saw the most beautiful coral and fish. The guide could tell us just about any fish and types of coral. You could see jellyfish just floating by so we had to be careful to not get too close or let them hit us. After that we lazed around just reading and relaxing.

They fed us about ever 3 hours, we were never hungry. The staff was top notch, never felt like an imposition to ask for something to drink, help with the rain covers for our beds or help with scuba equipment.

12/20/2024 - 12/21/2024 @ Kangaroo Island

Accommodation: Kangaroo Island Lodge

Activity: 2 day Outback Tour

Again so fucking cool! As soon as our plane arrived at Kangaroo Island we began our tour. There was only 6 of us, and we were definitely the youngest. All the guys were engineers of some kind which was an odd coincidence. Our guide was born and raised on the tiny island. There was more sheep than people by a long shot. He was able to tell us everything we could ever want to know about the island, and we learned about the fires that almost took out the entire island in 2019.

Day one was soon as we were driving out of the airport he spotted a koala bear and were able to pull over and see it. They are the dumbest cutest things. We went to Seal Beach where we saw dozens of seals with their young. We were able to go right on the beach but not too close to the seals.

Day two we saw an amazing lighthouse and learned how the people would only receive supplies every 3 months and horses would have to pull supplies up by a rope over the cliff side and how the island was separated into 1,000 useable acre sections and given to WW2 vets to farm. We also went and saw the Remarkable Rocks that are HUGE granite rocks that were pushed up out of the ground 500 million years ago. I mean they were HUGE and on the opposite side of the rocks were straight drop offs into the ocean. Incredible.

Food wise we stopped for tea time where we had tea and cakes and he also made us lunch on both days. The first day was at a private farm and the second time was at a rec area that was very secluded. He cooked all the food, we had such great company and he made an onion jam that was out of this world. After driving around all day he would take us back to our hotels.

We drove all around the island, soaking up the amazing scenery and tons and tons of info. We saw tons of koalas, a few wallabies and even fewer kangaroos. The kangaroos were very elusive and wanted nothing to do with people and would quickly hop away.