Fantasy Island

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Originally uploaded by BLP.

The honeymoon. . .

Our honeymoon started off, strangely, with a basketball theme - on our flight back to Melbourne, we sat next to Megan Moody, a graduating player from Tulsa's women's basketball team (who'd managed to develop an interesting Aussie/Oklahoma hybrid accent). Then, on our flight up to Queensland the following day, Uta was quite excited to find the 2005 first-round NBA draftee, Andrew Bogut, also on the same flight (or at least that's who she said he was, I find all 7-foot white boys look the same to me - but given that Bogut is Aussie and now quite well-paid, it seems plausible).

We arrived at the Hamilton Island airport in the Whitsundays (which immediately went down at the top of my list of tiny airports), and then we took a ferry over to our final destination of Club Med on neighboring Lindeman Island. Although clearly not Club Med's flagship resort, we found Lindeman Island quite enjoyable - small, plenty of activities, decent food, and we really liked the various trails that run throughout the island (allowing us to catch sight of bats, snakes, and other cool wildlife). That said, we did arrive at a slow time of the year, with staff clearly outnumbering guests, and the high winds made it difficult to get out onto the water. Our trip out to the Great Barrier Reef forced us to endure some pretty hairy boat rides, but the experience was well worth the effort.

We also found a number of people to socialise with, including Diane and Brian from Canberra, Danielle and co. from Melbourne, and Uta's tennis buddy, Hendrik showed up half-way through our stay with his mother and siblings. The resort staff we are generally young and friendly, and happy to gossip about the other guests and/or each other, which provided some entertainment as well.

Once again - quite a few pictures of this as well, which (depending on who you are) may or may not be heading your way.