Travel Eye on Dunk Island (Queensland, Australia)

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Overview:

Dunk is a sizeable island, roughly triangular in shape and 4 mls long. Most of it is a national park and its steep slopes, up to the highest point at Mount Kootaloo (890 ft), are covered in dense lush tropical rainforest. Rather incongruously, though, the area behind the resort is occupied by a farm and boasts rolling meadowland and well-spaced mature gum trees. The island has 8 mls of walking tracks, but take your waterproof boots ? vast amounts of rain fall here. It is home to hundreds of species of birds, lots of butterflies and a fair few lizards. It has an artists' colony and is famous for being the former home of EJ Banfield, writer of the "Beachcomber" books about his life on Dunk. His grave is on the island.

Locality:

Dunk Island is 3 mls off the Queensland coast, in the Coral Sea; Mission Beach and Tully are the nearest points on the mainland. It is 3 mls N of Bedarra Island, 20 mls W of the Great Barrier Reef, 88 mls S of Cairns and its international airport, 88 mls N of Townsville national airport. Dunk is the largest and most northerly of the Family group of islands: it is the "father" to Bedarra's "mother" with "twins" and "triplets" farther S.

Entertainment/Facilities/Attractions/Things to do:

Middlemarket couples, families, honeymooners and rainforest fans prepared to accept the rain with the forest are best suited to this destination. It sits in Australia's wettest area: umbrellas are provided at every corner in the resort.

Accommodation consists of only 1 resort hotel offering 4 different types and qualities of stay.

Dunk offers several beaches of fine golden brown sand including Brammo Bay Beach right in front of the hotel and Pallon Beach just a few yards away, across a narrow spit of land by the water-sports centre. Muggy Muggy and Coconut Beaches are found off the hiking tracks. The water is very shallow and does have some weed.

Entertainment and activities on Dunk include: archery, 9-hole golf course, squash, tennis, volleyball and horse riding; on water, catamarans, paddle skis, windsurfing, fishing, snorkelling, scuba diving, jet-skis, parasailing, water-skiing, wake-boarding, speedboat-towed rides, motor dinghies and guided kayak tours; guided rainforest walks; mountain bike tours. By night there is live entertainment most evenings which increases in peak season.

Eateries are limited to the hotel's main restaurant, which is a la carte except on Mediterranean and seafood buffet nights.

Getting to the island is dependent on daily flights from Cairns, water taxis from Mission Beach or Clump Point on the mainland. There is nothing to get around the island itself.

Excursions from Dunk include various boat trips: Brook Islands for a beach visit and snorkelling; outer reef for scuba diving or snorkelling; Family Islands; sunset sail; outer reef by glass-bottomed boat or semisubmersible; game and deep-sea fishing.