Phrases to practice down at the pub:

Come good – 1. To recover – ‘I was crook last week, but I’ve come good now’ 2. To produce something especially in response to a request – Dad came good with the cash

Tinnie/Tinny - a can of beer. To crack a tinnie is to have a beer with a mate

Ocker – A stereotypical Australian, uncivilised and uncouth. Hence, ockerdom and ockerism denote any or all characteristics

Location: Hamilton Island

Weather: Clearing rain clouds and then bright sunshine! Almost English to start! 30c

With the arrival of a few friends from the UK (Alison, Sarah and Jon) came a day of catching up and showing them around the area. The girls having arrived a few days earlier had the chance to head across to Airlie Beach for some shopping and together we missed the last boat from Shute Harbour back onto Hamilton Island…big Ooops!

Struggling to find an easy solution, with no usual mobile phone contacts due to a broken battery and a dinner date at the Beach Club back on the island looming large, everything was looking just a little unachievable – until that is Keith Roberts from Islandive stepped in to save the day. A quick phone call and he’d secured a fast boat to take us back to the island ensuring we got home in time for the dinner appointment. Impeccable service once again and a massive thank you!

Jon and I had an early appointment for his first full day on Hamilton Island – one with the new golf course on Dent Island. Neither of us play golf but thought it’d be a great way to dust off the cobwebs and share some ‘men-time’ out on the course with the girls sunning themselves back at the house.

Suffice to say our round was not improved by the fact that Tiger Woods is on every television channel here right now as he’s playing in the Australian Open. We managed to loose around 20 balls between the two of us in the first nine holes. A superb course though and a really fun way to start Jon’s holiday.

There’s no rest for the wicked though (so I must be truly wicked) so leaving my friends behind in the house, Bre and I made our way down to Hamilton Island Aviation where our helicopter was waiting to lift us up into the air and whisk us the 19kms across the Whitsunday Passage to Paradise Bay Eco-Resort on Long Island.

Paradise Bay Eco-tourism and the way it should be done…

Long Island has three very different resorts on it, I visited Peppers Palm Bay a few weeks ago, we’ll be staying at Long Island Resort next week but for the next couple of nights we have the great pleasure of staying at the most luxurious of the lot – and coupled with that the most environmentally conscious too.

Now I know you’ll probably say “you arrived my helicopter, that’s not environmentally friendly” but the owner of the resort actually owns another property in the Northern Territory and at the end of every year the manager here calculates how many helicopter flights have been taken to the island and for how long i.e. the total flight time to the island, and the carbon footprint is then compensated by planting the relevant number of trees – last year 3500 of them!

We touched down onto the tiniest of landing pads nestled in amongst the palm trees, jumped out and were greeted by the Tapa and Jane, the managers of Paradise Bay – our location for the next couple of days. Making our way along the path we arrived at the main social area (there is only one as there’s so few people here it’s all that is needed!) and met a few of the other guests.

A maximum of 16 people can stay here at any one time, there are no children allowed and the lodge is environmentally sound in its power generation and use of water – nothing comes from the mainland. I was going to like this place you know as I’m very interested in this sort of tourism and hope to learn lots about the way that things should be done in the rest of the world.

The entire Lodge is powered by a large bank of 24-volt batteries which are charged by solar panels and backed up by a bio-diesel generator for cloudy days to provide power to all of the 10 accommodation units, social area and kitchen.. An inverter converts the electricity from 24-volts up to a 240v system so that normal appliances can be used. The electricity is used not only for lights and appliances but also to power the sewage treatment plant and fresh water system – but in total, the Lodge uses less electricity than an average suburban house.

Each bungalow has a separate solar panel and tank that provides hot water for showers. The tanks store enough hot water for normal use up to four days without sunshine. All water used on the site comes from the catchment areas provided the roofs of the cabins with 500,000 litres currently being stored here and a new tank taking the total to 1,000,000 litres planned for later in the year. The rain which fell extensively last week has replenished the reservoirs after a few months of drought here and the water which comes through the taps is filtered and as result is perfectly drinkable.

Any waste produced going into the sewerage system is organically broken down with a biological process and the liquid which is produced over time is then used as grey water for the gardens. Nothing goes to waste here! Paradise Bay is truly the most ‘eco’ (a word which is banded around far too easily these days) location I have visited. There are no hairdryers, televisions or radios and the lights are all low wattage power-saver bulbs whose dim light only add to the whole experience.
Our cabin was positioned right on the beach, literally fall out of the door and you’re touching it. There’s a hammock looking off the veranda and inside the comfiest and largest pillows for a long time – no pillow menu needed here! As the sun dropped into the ocean, the orange/red light floods the front of our cabin signalling dinner is almost ready to be served. We make our way along the boardwalk past the flickering oil lamps and into the divinely setup dinner table – one long table with all tonight’s guests around it waiting to start the feast.

This type of hosted accommodation is pretty special, you really feel although you’re being looked after on a different level here more than any other location so far with friendly attentive hosts who double up as chefs and experts on the different wines that are served with every course.

Seating everybody together enforces a social night where new friendships are struck and relationships built – you could come to a lodge like this and never have to talk to another soul…but that’s just not me and the formula works perfectly.
From the small kitchen area a gastronomic delight is produced and dining under the stars with the candlelights flickering creates a social, romantic atmosphere I haven’t yet found on my travels. We conclude the night with marshmallows cooked around the campfire, just what we need on a hot and balmy night!

I awake early to the sound of the high tide lapping just outside my door, throw on my running kit and make for walking track which runs around the island. I had tried to make for this end of the island when I stayed at Peppers Palm Bay a few weeks back, setting off on an track which looked as though it’d come this far down the island but after an hour of sweating it out realised that this lodge is truly cut off from the rest of the world as no tracks come here through the bush….access is only by the air or water.

I plodded into the lodge’s social area an hour after hitting the overgrown track around the south side of the island just as the clock hit 9 a.m., breakfast was just about over!

The lodge has its very own catamaran moored out in the bay that sails everyday (bar Sunday) to a different location around the islands. We decided to head out with the crew and a few other guests to discover some of the creeks and coves on the mainland just opposite the resort towing a few kayaks and a dinghy would allow us to get right into the heart of the mangrove systems which line the coast here.

An hour later we lay anchor outside ‘Wolf Creek’ – not the famous people slaying location made famous in the horror movie instead a pretty little backwater called ‘Woodcutter Bay’ that needed further exploration. Bre and I untied a kayak, slapped on the sunscreen and paddled off to find out more.

Winding our way through the mangrove trees we entered a peaceful watery world where nature was the only other thing around; the occasional ‘splosh’ or ‘plop’ into the water signalling something had sensed our arrival. As we patrolled the fringes of the estuary the high tide had covered some of the smaller mangrove trees creating perfect sunning platforms where small turtles park up and chill out.

The warm rays of the sun super-heating the surface of the ocean and as we cruised by we spotted three of them within 50 metres of each other. Their sleepy morning only disturbed as we got within a metre of them as at the last moment each of them scrambled into the deep water to escape the camera.

Back on the cat we sailed slowly up the coast stopping off at Cow and Calf Islands to head ashore for a beach lunch, our individual hampers and a beach towel all we needed to get away the group as we found a little area of sand where no on else would find us…except maybe the eight Shovel Nose Rays truffling around in the foreshore as they too prepared for lunch.

The full day of sunshine had taken its toll and as we sailed back to the lodge my head tilted like a nodding dog into my book and before long I was asleep, the sound of the anchor chain awaking me from my slumber as we prepared to moor up for the night.

With the last of the evening light still just about visible in the sky the announcement came that dinner was again on the way. Our single table had now been split into two as more guests had arrived and the evening’s feasting began once more.

The walk back to the room reminds you of quite how in the middle of nowhere you are, there is no light pollution from the lodge itself, bar the flickering oil lamps, the mainland onto which the lodge faces has no sign of life in fact the strongest light comes from the heavens as the Milky Way and the galaxy light the sky all around. I sat on the veranda before heading to bed to take it all in.

Of all the retreats I’ve been to this has to be the most unique of the lot. It is a single venture by Peter Spann who has created a one-off experience and wholly deserves its number one rank on www.tripadvisor.com
I really love the fact it makes an effort and succeeds in giving a sustainable holiday experience where virtually no impact is made on the environment. It heightens your awareness about the steps which we all could, and should, make to lessen our footprint on the planet which is creaking under the load of humankind right now.

I want to recycle more, I want to change all my light bulbs for energy efficient ones, I want to build my own sustainable house, I want to buy a Toyota Prius, I want to have a stack of solar panels outside my house which says “I do care, I am making a step to save the planet”.

If only more of the world’s politicians would come here and experience it…

End of day location: Long island

Distance covered: 25kms