Idyllic Luncheon Bay and Hill Inlet

Luncheon Bay

Us snorkeling around Luncheon Bay

Underwater - Clam

Chris snorkelling

Fri 7^th September and we motor Mingo over to the far northern end of Hook Island to Luncheon Bay.  Now we really are in paradise, can this really keep getting better?  We snorkel around the reef, we thought the coral and fish were good at Butterfly Bay, but here is so much better.  

Fish and coral around Luncheon Bay

  We spend a good hour snorkeling, and then go for a walk along the beach and amongst the rocks to dry off. 

 Then time to stake our claim to Luncheon Bay by making our own sign on the rocks with dead coral we find on the beach.  Wonder how long before someone moves it or the waves wash it up – I guess we will never know…

Our coral made sign

Andrew holding rocks up

We find a cave amongst the rocks and Andrew goes in and with all his might holds a huge rock up with one hand to stop if falling on Christie –Oh what a saviour!!!.  We have a look in the cave and it is covered with dead white coral on the ground and a number of large rocks being held up by one another, the remains of volcanoes.

Back in the water for another snorkel, we couldn’t resist having another look before heading off.  Luncheon Bay is by far the best snorkel spot we have visited among the Whitsunday Islands.

Snorkelling with some pretty fish

We then motor Mingo further around Hook Island to see what other great snorkel stops or pretty Bays we can find.  Unfortunately as we were heading further around, the swell picked up which would have made it very uncomfortable to anchor in, so we head down the Eastern side of Hook Island passed Manta Ray Bay, Pinnacle Point, Mackerel Bay and Saba Bay, all very pretty spots but from looking at a distance into them still didn’t seem as great as Luncheon, so we were not to worried about not being able to pull up at any.

Pinnacle Point

We were planning on heading down through Hook passage, which is a passage between Hook Island and Whitsunday island, but instead of taking this passage we make the decision to go and have another look at Whitehaven.   

Coral Spawning

Along the way we notice miles of this thick brown coloured sludge in the water and find out that it is coral spawn.

 We head into Tongue Bay, which is at the northern tip of Whitsunday Island after passing Border Island.  We anchor up among about 11 other boats, a few being tourist boats and after some lunch we head over to the island in the tinny. 

Tongue Bay

Chris on track up to view of Hill Inlet

There is a track that leads from the little beach across Tongue Point to silica sand beach on the other side where the amazing spectacle of Hill Inlet and Whitehaven beach unfolds.  We head up the man made track about 500m to the look out and are surprised to find the magnificent views straight into Hill Inlet and across to the long sweep of Whitehaven beach.  

Us overlooking the beauty of Hill Inlet

It is totally breathtaking looking out over Hill Inlet.  There are no words to describe this picture perfect scene, its idyllic.  We feel like we are looking into a water painting.  The colours and the movement of the water and sand bars below are just incredible, I mean really really incredible.  How many photo’s can you take of such a picture perfect setting.  We are blinking so much because it’s so surreal.  I honestly don’t have the words to explain what we were seeing and actually give it justice.   

Hill Inlet - This is real!!

Clear water entrance to Hill Inlet

 We climb down the hill in awe and decide instead of walking down to the beach of the view we have just witnessed, that we would take Mingo over there and see if we could actually spend the night anchored.  So we move from Tongue Bay over to Hill Inlet.  It’s very calm out now and the ride over easy as we pull the tinny behind us.  We get to the entrance of the inlet and you can see the sand banks in front of us.  Andrew motors through close to the shore trying as best he can to follow the channel as Christie is constantly reading the depth finder, going from 8 meters, to 4 meters, to 5 meters, back to 8 meters, to 2 meters, to 4 meters to .9 meter, ohoh.. Time to try a different track, so after a few attempts to get into the inlet and the water below 2 meters in a lot of spots (we are at high tide at the moment) we decide to abandon the idea of staying in Hill Inlet tonight and think we are better off coming over here tomorrow in the tinny.  So we head back around to tongue Bay and drop anchor for the night, looking forward to our adventure tomorrow of what Hill Inlet has to offer us – We cant wait to see this beauty of a spot by actually being in it instead of seeing it as a view.