World – Cheryl W

Hamilton Island in the Whitsunday archipelago enjoys tropical climate and is right off the Great Barrier Reef – perhaps the world’s greatest natural wonder.

It’s not unusual to find entire seaside towns or destinations with natural beauty that have either evolved into or have been created by design as adult playgrounds.

To say this is true of Hamilton Island would perhaps be an unfairly bland statement for three unique reasons: its status as part of the Whitsunday archipelago, its tropical climate and its position right off Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef – perhaps the world’s greatest natural wonder.

Hamilton Island is one of 74 Whitsunday Islands whose evolution into an inhabited island started some 8000 years when the Ngaro Aborginal tribe called it home. It was then discovered by Captain Cook in 1770 while he was charting Australia’s coastline – he reputedly named the island after Lady Hamilton. The island was bought in 2003 by world renowned winemaker Robert Oatley who developed one third of it with hotels, restaurants and bars leaving the rest of the landscape in its pristine natural state.

The entrepreneur is also an acclaimed yachtsman and so he created the Hamilton Island Yacht Club which he founded in 2009 and it became a challenger for the America’s cup in 2014.

Hamilton Island is the only island in the Great Barrier Reef with its own commercial jet airport. You can get there with a commercial jet, private jet or a helicopter, itself an exciting experience, and from the airport it’s a buggy ride to your accommodation.

Indeed, buggies are the mode of transport around the island. The most luxurious accommodation is qualia – a Latin word meaning “a collection of deeper sensory experiences” – located on a peninsula on the island’s northern tip. The complex has 60 architect-designed pavilions within a forest of gum and palm trees. Many of them have infinity pools with stunning views spanning over the Whitsunday Islands.

There are less expensive accommodation options too such as Palm Bungalows, Reef View Hotel or Private Holiday Homes.

And though there are plenty of gorgeous spots to sunbathe, there are also compelling reasons to explore. After-all, the Great Barrier Reef and Whitehaven Beach are easy to reach and a myriad of trails will bring you up close with the fauna and flora of the island.

There are plenty of sports on offer too including golf, tennis and a small wildlife park that the kids tend to love, especially if you sprinkle in a trip to the bowling alley, go-kart track and mini-golf.

There are several shops and restaurants in the marina where bird life is vibrant and friendly, in particular the wild cockatoos and rainbow lorikeets who come to inspect diners during the day.

In most US cities, the share of trips made by bike struggles to reach 2%. In Davis it’s 10 times that – but the city is becoming less and less of a paradise for pedalling. On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain.

These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.

But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful.

Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?

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