At any one time Hamilton Island hosts 2,000 people and approximately 200 boats in its world-class marina... Hamilton Island also includes a fifty acre fauna park featuring kangaroos and koalas. There are at least 150 species of birds, and 20 kilometres of marked walking trails taking you to mountain peaks with 360 degree island views. Hamilton Island has fringing coral reef with the best snorkelling and diving at Catseye Beach. You can also visit the outer Great Barrier Reef by high speed catamaran or helicopter… Hamilton Island is an attractive island resort. It is well kept, well run and has a friendly tropical atmosphere.

Hamilton Island is more of a town than a resort. People live here, there are shops, kerbed roads, buggies and even, to the dismay of some, pedestrian crossings… but no traffic lights. The commercial centre of Hamilton Island is on one side of the island and the resort accommodation on the other side. The shops bordering the marina are San Francisco-ish in design and it is a pleasant area to shop and eat, with a safe harbour marina and luxury yachts adding to the atmosphere. One of the great advantages of Hamilton Island as an Australian holiday destination is that you can fly directly there from the eastern capitals as well as from Cairns.

Geologically the Whitsunday Islands are all drowned mountains. Prior to the last ice age they were connected to the mainland and would have all been prominent mountains in the area… The melting of the polar caps drowned the valleys between the mountains creating a network of 74 islands of which only 7 have resort facilities. Beyond the resorts the whole area is part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and the uninhabited islands are all controlled by National Parks and Wildlife.

Hamilton Island is hilly with its highest peak, Passage Peak, rising to over 200 metres (660 feet)… Views from the top are superb: across to Whitsunday Island, and south to Pentecost Island with its dramatic volcanic cone. The vegetation is typical of the area, with a few patches of rainforest, hoop pines and some lovely old eucalypts. There is plenty of birdlife and a fauna reserve with an array of Australian native animals such as koalas, kangaroos, wallabies and wombats… and still over 80 percent of the island remains in its natural state apart from walking trails to such delightfully out of the way destinations as Coral Cove, Passage Peak and Escape Beach.

There is a church on Hamilton Island (people can get married here) as well as numerous accommodation options, including relatively simple individual bures, butler-serviced private villas, prestige houses and whole-floor apartments able to accommodate four or five people… The cost varying according to what you choose. The central Hamilton Island resort complex is attractive, with its South Sea island style lobby, tropical gardens and enormous, sparkling fresh water pool.

The Hamilton Island resort is essentially a family resort with enough activities to keep every age occupied all day long… However, it is not exclusively for families and has enough facilities to cater for couples as well as people wanting to relax. The Hamilton Island Beach Club Resort appeals to the upper end of the holiday market (it is adults only – no children allowed), the Reef View Hotel and Whitsunday Apartments appeal to families while the Palm Bungalows and Terrace attract couples who want privacy.

There are ten restaurants you can choose between at the resort, as well as numerous takeaway food outlets… Activities are many and even more varied than on other islands… A number of Whitsunday cruise operators provide pickups from the Hamilton Island Resort for trips to the outer reef… Alternatively, you can go by helicopter from the Hamilton Island airport.

Most trips that you are likely to want are available from Hamilton, including ‘skipper yourself’ bareboat charters and extended cruises to the islands or the outer reef. You can, if you wish, combine a Hamilton Island Resort holiday with some cruising… The island has its own fringing reef, and you can snorkel off Catseye Beach, on which the resort is situated. Basically, anything that can be done in the Whitsundays can be done on Hamilton Island, and a great deal more besides… Some of the other islands are more upmarket and expensive but nothing else in the Whitsundays approaches the scale of the Hamilton Island Resort as an Australian holiday destination.