odysseyone

I’m pretty sure there isn’t a beautiful place left on earth that hasn’t been overrun by humans. We just returned from a few days of island camping in the Whitsundays. Okay, it is peak season and a busy place at the best of times, but we were camping at the furthest place on Hook Island, so I expected it would be more isolated than it was. It’s a strange thing to be stranded on a tiny beach and have party yachts coming and going, entertaining you with disco music at 7am! The campsite was idyllic and so cliché- turquoise blue water, great snorkelling, lush green mountains surrounding us and bronzed Frenchmen baking on the beach. We arrived with two Frenchmen and I was beginning to think I had had my passport stamped and had flown to some European paradise when another three French people were dropped off the next day. On our last night there were 10 people on the island and only four were Australian (one I was embarrassed to call my compatriot). Our camping adventure didn’t exactly get off to a good start. My super organised husband realised he had forgotten his Ventalin as the boat pulled away from the harbour. Needless to say, the captain was pretty unimpressed to return to the harbour and I was afraid he might leave us stranded on Hook Island as punishment. I’ve never seen Justin run so fast and I was afraid he might need to use the Ventalin when he got back to the boat. He didn’t feel so bad when an Aussie guy arrived the next day without all his dried food. Lucky he had his fishing rod with him. We were able to snorkel right off the beach on high tide and the fish species wasn’t as varied as at Lady Musgrave Island, but the coral was far more spectacular. Green, blue, red, pink, yellow and such an amazing variety of types. Justin also found this gigantic clam which nearly ate his flipper! Other than snorkelling, there’s not a lot to do on a deserted beach except eat, swim, sunbake, read and laze in the hammock. Afternoons were spent in our camp chairs (how decadent!) on the beach with cheese and a flagon (we’re on a budget now) watching the sun go down. It’s those little touches that make something perfect and the Frenchman next door playing his euchalale and whistling tunes from my grandparents era while floating in the ocean just added that special touch. Whenever these guys spoke to each other it just sounded so romantic I was convinced they were saying “ I love you, will you marry me?” The only thing that put a dark cloud over our paradise setting was the Australian woman and her partner with the unidentifiable accent, who showed up in a tinny late in the afternoon on our final night, stoned and drunk. Their intelligence level was overwhelming. They appeared to have no idea they were in a national park and when they saw the signs warning against fires on the beach it stopped them in their tracks- for just a second. When they found out the chances of a ranger showing up was pretty slim they proceeded to tear down tree branches and light a fire on the beach, where they slept, only to be attacked by midges during the night. Justin helped them push their boat out the next morning, which was left high and dry metres above the shoreline. After a perfect couple of days, I did what any good national park visitor does- I left with only memories and dozens of itchy sandfly bites.