Great Barrier Reef & Whitehaven Beach
Hamilton Island is a perfect base for exploring two of the region’s most famous and renowned attractions: the magnificent Great Barrier Reef and the pristine Whitehaven Beach.
The world’s largest expanse of coral, the Great Barrier Reef is home to the most diverse plant and animal life on the planet, with spectacular coral formations, hundreds of species of fish, turtles, manta rays and even visiting dolphins and whales. Located in the heart of the Whitsundays, and with a range of accommodation near the Great Barrier Reef, Hamilton Island is an ideal place from which to explore this unique part of the world. The Hamilton Island Tour Desk offers a selection of well-organised tours, activities and excursions.
Whitehaven Beach, with its warm, turquoise-hued water and soft, impeccably white sand, is one of the world’s most unspoiled and beautiful beaches - named as the number one beach in Australia by TripAdvisor*. The Hamilton Island Tour Desk can also help you explore Whitehaven Beach in a way that best suits you.
In 2017, Whitehaven Beach was rated the #1 Beach in the South Pacific in the TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Awards.
What you’ll love about the Great Barrier Reef and Whitehaven Beach:
Proximity to Hamilton Island
Whitehaven Beach is just a thirty-minute trip on a high-speed catamaran, and Hamilton Island offers several Whitehaven Beach day trips and Whitehaven Beach tours. A trip to Reefworld, a permanently moored pontoon on the Great Barrier Reef, takes around two hours from Hamilton Island via catamaran, making it a superb destination for a half-day or full-day tour.
Endless ways to enjoy
There are multiple ways to visit and enjoy Whitehaven Beach and the Great Barrier Reef from Hamilton Island, depending on how much time you have, your budget, and your travel preferences. You can take a scenic helicopter ride, a seaplane, sail in one of the island’s yachts, or take a tour via a high speed catamaran. You can select from a range of day-trips and tours to various reef destinations, where you can dive, snorkel, or simply relax and enjoy the view.
World-famous, iconic destinations
No visit to this part of the world would be complete without a visit to these remarkable natural wonders. Whitehaven Beach stretches for seven kilometres and is washed by swirls of turquoise, blue and green water. The sand is 98 per cent pure white silica, which gives it a brilliant, near luminescent colour. It has been voted as the world’s top eco-friendly beach, and Queensland’s cleanest beach. The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living thing on earth and is even visible from outer space. It spans close to 350,000 square kilometres, includes thousands of reefs and hundreds of islands, and is home to countless species of fish, molluscs, starfish, turtles, dolphins and sharks.
Family-friendly tours
Both Whitehaven Beach and the Great Barrier Reef are family-friendly destinations. Little ones can happily snorkel at Reefworld, and there’s also an underwater submarine which runs frequent and free tours. They can also admire the reef’s resident grouper through the viewing hole. Whitehaven Beach offers plenty of opportunities for children to play on the sand, or to swim or snorkel in the delightfully warm turquoise water.