About the Whitsundays

A trip to the beautiful Whitsunday’s is high on the list of both visitors to Australia and locals and is not to be missed.

In the heart of the Great Barrier Reef the 74 lovely islands sit like jewels on a velvet carpet of crystal clear water.

With one of the best beaches in the world (Whitehaven), coral gardens, and a host of marine life make this wonderland ideal for vacations from the fun to the romantic.

Mostly uninhabited, the subtropical islands off the north east coast of Australia are located midway along the length of the Great Barrier Reef, about halfway between Brisbane and Cairns.

This unique group of national park islands are all within a few miles of each other. The islands contain hundreds of secluded bays and small sandy beaches, with abundant marine life in the fringing coral reefs and protected waters of the surrounding Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

The Whitsunday Islands are continental islands formed from drowned volcanic mountains. They are mostly quite large and mountainous – covered with an interesting variety of vegetation, including native pine forest, sub tropical rainforest and mangrove estuaries.

All the islands are surrounded by fringing coral reef, with a huge variety of fish, soft and hard corals. The foreshore of most of the Whitsunday islands is generally rocky – interspersed with small sandy beaches in numerous protected bays. An exception is Whitehaven, a 6 kilometere beach on the uninhabited Whitsunday Island (the largest in the group) and regularly voted the best beach in the world.