The Absolutely Beautiful Whitsundays!!!

We had to keep Sarah's parents on the move, so just 2 days after they flew across the world to come visit, we got on another plane headed to Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays (in the Great Barrier Reef). It was amazingly stunning!!! Hamilton Island is this cute little island, one of over 70 islands that make up the Whitsundays, where you feel like you are away from the rest of the world. You drive around the island on your own private golf cart, and you feel like the whole island is a tiny little quaint town. We actually had a 2-bedroom condo on right on the beach, got to watch kangaroos hop in the field right in front of our patio, and just relax. The one downside we encountered was that there was construction going on practically right next door to our place...we were sooo annoyed. Come to find out, they were doing construction pretty much all over the island. We just had to plan our day around the construction worker's lunch break...and threatening to slash his tires. =) Just kidding. But really, he would do the beep-beep-beep thing and we were about to send him on vacation! Sarah and I got a windsurfing lesson...which was actually really really fun. It was a lot harder than it looked, but once I caught on and was able to stay on for a while, it was sooo fun! And a great workout! We also did some snorkeling right off the beach in front of our condo, saw some sea turtles, a sting ray (which was a bit freaky) and of course some fish. Sarah and I also did parasailing, which was also way fun! Sarah's parents were able to see us from atop a huge hill and take pics of us. All four of us went on a day trip out on a boat, that went to Whitehaven Beach, as well as a couple of other stops for fish and chips, snorkeling, and dodging lightning bolts. Whitehaven Beach is supposedly one of the top 10 beaches in the world, although we weren't able to enjoy very much time there due to the rain and lightning storm that came upon us as we were just getting there. We also got totally rained out of a sunset dinner cruise sailing around the islands. Darn rain!!! Hamilton Island was definitely one of the highlights of being in Australia. It was a good way to end the 6 months.