Dave's email to everyone about Hook island...

G'Day

The last few days have been quite interesting. We stayed in Airlie beach for a night before boarding a wooden sailing ship that took us to Hook Island 'Resort', which is one of the Whitsunday Islands. The place is situated on the edge of the Coral Sea, nestled into the rain forest. Sounds nice. The wildlife is all around you, mostly bugs, big bugs. Well giant bugs really. And there are flocks of Cockatoos and Parrots and these longlegged shore birds that seem to stand sentry around the place. Off the beach is some of the best snorkeling I've ever seen. Granted the conditions were not the best, the water was a bit choppy and it was cloudy, so it makes the viewing a little murky. But I did see a blue spotted stingray, and swam with a sea turtle. The coral beds are unreal, huge gardens of undulating coral, surrounded by thousands of colorful fish of all sizes and shapes.

On the other hand, the place was a dump. The bathrooms were smelly and not cleaned until the afternoon of our second day, and we're pretty sure we saw a rat, or something rat like, running into the kitchen. The rooms were crappy, but air conditioned, and the beds were uncomfortable. the staff while very friendly, were quite lazy and the food was of poor quality, and expensive, so Tara and I decided to cut it short by a day and head back to Airlie Beach. We decided to spend the night in a 5 star resort with queen size bed and jacuzzi tub, tv, free movies and a swimming pool. It was fabulous and well deserved. We ordered room service and ate on our balcony overlooking the ocean.