AUSTRALIA: Reef encounter

Jul 15 2008 by Mary Murtagh

View from the Reef View Hotel on the Great Barrier Reef _320

Mary Murtagh enjoys the marine lifestyle on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

IF I get hit by a bus tomorrow I shall die happy. A trip to the Great Barrier Reef does that to you. You feel privileged, glad to have lived and filled with awe for mother nature.

Visiting the world's largest coral reef system is like stepping into the pages of National Geographic.]

I kept expecting to bump into David Attenborough filming his latest documentary.

The superlatives are all deserved.

The reef is 1,600 miles long and is in the, aptly-named, Coral Sea off the Queensland coast in northeast Australia.

It’s so big it is visible from space so you just have to make your peace with the fact that whatever bit you visit it will only ever be a snapshot.

Qantas Holidays based us on Hamilton Island and for three days it was our little piece of paradise Down Under.

It is one of the 74 Whitsunday Islands and is a one-stop-shop for turquoise water which is always warm enough to swim in, glorious sandy beaches, and a year round tropical climate.

Our hotel, the Reef View, was perfect. We had a spectacular view from our balcony which we shared with cheeky snow white cockatiels that will steal your swimsuit if it’s hanging out to dry.

Our transport around the island was a golf buggy and I had my reservations about driving it at first. Friend Myranda adopted her usual London style of driving and I soon got my courage up and we eventually ended up fighting over the keys.

The whole island is a resort and caters for most tastes, from family-friendly chalets to the five-star Qualia experience.

It would be easy to stay put on the island taking in blissful treatments at the beauty salon on site, hopping from one fabulous pool to another, stuffing your face at the amazing fantastic breakfast buffets (including an amazing opportunity to eat with koalas) and touring the island in your buggy.

We certainly had fun dining al fresco at the wide range of cafes and restaurants, oohing and aahing at the countless fabulous views from the island, and doing early-morning pool crawls.

But that would be missing the point because Hamilton Island is the perfect springboard for the reef.

We hopped on board the large and fast Fantasea catamaran which sped us through clear blue water and past uninhabited desert islands to spend the day at Reefworld.