Australia’s Top Beach – Whitehaven and Whitsundays Travel Guide

An exchange to Queensland for a semester! Non-stop travelling, new friends with crocodile-hunter accents, wearing shorts and “thongs” every day to class, swimming with black tip reef sharks in the Great Barrier Reef. I would be a fool to pass up that opportunity. Especially the opportunity I got to travel up the east coast with some friends during our Easter break to one of Australia’s best kept secrets – the Whitsunday Islands.

The Whitsunday Islands are an archipelago of islands, whose name is based on Captain Cook’s naming of what is now known as the Whitsunday Passage (June, 1770)  in the belief that the passage was discovered on Whitsunday. The Sunday of the feast of Whitsun or Pentecost in the Christian liturgical year, observed 7 weeks after Easter. However, the name is a misnomer, as the International Date Line had not been established it was actually Whit-Monday.

These stunning islands are most commonly known for Hamilton Island, the land of the celebrities and its infamous “Whitehaven beach”.

A few nights stay in Airlie beach, the mainland tourist port, where you can catch a ferry or yacht to sightsee the incredible 74 islands all along the coastline. There are a handful of packages to charter yachts, go diving, catch a ferry, stay at an all-inclusive resort but my best bet if you are on what I would refer to as a “student budget”, I would suggest you hop aboard a sailing adventure for a day where you get your drinks, food, snorkeling and of course visit, a definite must see, WhiteHaven Beach.

White haven beach is Queensland’s most beautiful beach and Australia’s most photographed beach. One look and you can see why. The crystal clear aqua waters and pristine silica sand of Whitehaven stretch over seven kilometers; defining nature at its best.

Whitsundays is one my top recommendations for visiting. During Easter is even better! So you can do as I did. Sink your feet into the purest white sand, play a little cricket with friends on the beach and take a snorkel or dive in some aussie warm waters but don’t forget your wetsuit in case those little jellyfish are out and about.

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