Getting Away By Hook Or Crook
Sun Herald
Sunday February 1, 2004
A new safari-style resort is destined for the Whitsundays James Shrimpton writes.
LAGUNA Whitsundays, already growing into Australia's largest holiday haven, is going offshore with its takeover of Hook Island.
The 10-hectare island in the Whitsunday Islands National Park , will be upgraded from a downmarket backpacker destination to ``a beautiful safari-style resort," a Laguna announcement said.
The price paid for the lease of Hook Island, where the former Wilderness Resort was in receivership, was not disclosed but is known to be more than $1 million.
The redesigned resort will be eco-friendly, with reef diving and snorkelling, bush walks, birdwatching and an activities base on an underwater observatory opened in 1965.
A master plan for Hook Island is being discussed by Laguna, owned by Melbourne entrepreneur David Marriner , with the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Department of Natural Resources.
Laguna Whitsundays general manager Luis Diamonon said it was hoped that the first holiday guests would arrive at the new resort by April 2005.
Laguna said Hook Island would be a tranquil hideaway well away from the region's other popular resorts ``a magical destination" for Laguna Whitsundays guests, who could combine stays at the mainland resort and on the island, a stepping stone to the Great Barrier Reef.
The white silica sands of Whitehaven Beach , which has been rated among the world's top 10 beaches, would be little more than 10 minutes away by boat. Hook Island was named for its shape as shown on British Admiralty charts in the mid-1800s although it's also been claimed that the source was a local fisherman who had a hook replacing his lost left hand.
The 459-metre Hook Peak is the highest hill on the island.
At the southern end of Hook are two fjord-like inlets, named Nara and Macona , which provide a safe anchorage for visiting yachts. Crews fill their water tanks from waterfalls nearby.
One walking track leads to Butterfly Bay , known for the swarms of butterflies around its shores.
Current development of Laguna Whitsundays, 110 kilometres north of Mackay, includes a new tourist town for up to 3500 residents and visitors, its own international airport and an expanded marina.
The resort is built on 3200 hectares with four kilometres of sea frontage on Repulse Bay , bushland, marshland and pockets of rainforest.
The $50 million Whitsunday Coast Airport , to open later this year, will have a main runway 3.1 kilometres long, able to take jumbo jets and the futuristic 555-passenger Airbus A380 .
It replaces the smaller strip at nearby Proserpine Airport , which Mr Marriner is taking over, and will enable overseas tourists to fly in direct.
Two new 18-hole golf courses will supplement the present Turtle Point championship layout, one of them the first to be designed by Australia's leading woman player, Karrie Webb .
Holiday accommodation includes villas and condominiums lining the fairways of Turtle Point. Future plans are for a five-star, 120-room hotel beside a lagoon near the present Beach Club, along with 160 more condos and villas.
Later will come the three-star to four-star Red Emperor Family Resort with 40-metre wave pool, 15 floodlit tennis courts and a multi-purpose sports oval.
Activities at the resort will include archery, beach cricket, beach and pool volleyball, biking, canoeing and sailing, croquet, fishing, horse-riding, swimming in the pool and at the Beach Club, tennis and windsurfing.
Phone Laguna Whitsundays Resort on (07) 4947 7777 or see www.lagunawhitsundays.info.
© 2004 Sun Herald
