Just got back from a few days up on Hamilton Island in the fantastic Whitsunday Islands on the Great Barrier Reef.

Highs:

• Diving trip to the Bait Reef on the Great Barrier Reef and seeing ridiculous amounts of coral and its mindblowing spectrum of reef fish (Nemo), white tip reef sharks and sea turtles
• Helicopter flight over Whitsunday island with the magical Hill Inlet (picture above) and Whitehaven Beach, Australia’s most photographed beach
• Hiking up onto the 240m high Passage Peak in the early morning
• The ever present and very communicative cockatoos
• More sea turtles and tons of stingrays casually snorkling in Catseye beach just in front of the resort
• Patting some very tame and cuddly dingos

Lows:

• Hamilton Island literally being one big resort with everything commercial somehow connected and expensive
• Bad food
• Being tickled by a jellyfish
• My ears struggling with the pressure equalization during the dive

If you’re over 25 you would remember the time before the interwebs and what coming home from a trip brought with it being checking the mail and phone messages then doing laundry. These days I’m always astonished what the digital life asks for. I must have spent hours checking email and Facebook, going through my RSS feeds, updating Wordpress, editing and uploading pictures to my photo blog and create a Facebook album. Much to the displeasure of my needy dog Mack.