Whitsundays

Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays is 98 percent silica sand, finer and whiter than almost any other sand on Earth. The silica is so pure that the sand doesn't retain heat the way ordinary sand does, which is why you can walk barefoot on it at midday in summer. Captain Cook charted the islands in 1770, naming them after the Whitsunday Christian feast he sailed past on, although the beach itself was named in 1879 by an Admiralty surveyor. The beach is the headline of the islands, but it is one of seventy-four similar islands packed into the protected water inside the Great Barrier Reef.

A Whitsundays charter usually centres on Hill Inlet, the tidal estuary at the northern end of Whitehaven, where the swirling sand and water make the photograph that ends up on every brochure. Hayman Island, a private resort island at the top of the chain, is the most exclusive luxury anchor. Hamilton Island is the developed one with the airport. Hardy Reef and the outer Great Barrier Reef pontoons run as day trips from the inner islands for the diving and snorkelling, with the visibility on the outer reef regularly past 25 metres.

The season is the Australian dry season, May to October, when the rain backs off and the stinger jellyfish risk is essentially zero. November to April brings tropical summer with its associated cyclones and box jellyfish, and most luxury charters avoid the wet season entirely. Most Whitsundays charters pick up at Hamilton Island, which has direct international flights, or in Airlie Beach on the Queensland coast.