Day One
“Welcome to Splendid Isolation,” says the large wooden sign posted over the dock. As our boat slows to a stop, I get my first up-close look at Hinchinbrook, the island just a couple of miles away from the Great Barrier Reef where my husband, our four children, and I will be spending the next five days. It’s just like the pictures on the Internet: moon-curved, pearl-colored beach fringed by lush rainforest, waves lapping the shore, green hills rising up beyond the trees. I congratulate myself on having found the perfect place—billed as a family-friendly eco resort—to end our long anticipated dream vacation to Australia. Sure, we’ve had cold, wet, miserable weather our entire trip so far, but here, in paradise—in our own, reasonably priced beach cabin, no less—we’re sure to have better luck. I can already see myself sipping passion fruit juice by the pool, frolicking in the surf with my children, hiking through the rainforest, and, of course, snorkeling and diving on the Reef.
Day One, Ten Hours Later
We’re trekking back to our cabin after dinner. Turns out that “eco resort” means no paved roads, no TVs, no heated pool, no telephones, one finicky generator powering the entire compound, and an overflowing septic tank next to the restaurant, which, due to the odor wafting through the dining room, my children have named “the poop deck.” Oh, and our “beach cabin” is actually a 70s-era trailer—complete with a rusty corrugated tin roof, a stained shag carpet, yellowed curtains, paneled walls, giant white ants crawling on the inside of the kids’ bedroom window, and saggy, sand-filled beds—surrounded by rainforest, a quarter-mile’s walk from the main lodge. Splendid isolation, indeed.
It started to drizzle as soon as we got off the boat, then the drizzle turned to rain as we slogged our way down the long, dirt road to our cabin. After being bitten by sand flies and rained on at the beach, we spent the rest of the day in the lodge’s loft, where we huddled together and played cards and watched the island’s only TV, then tromped downstairs to the deserted open-air restaurant, where we ate a lukewarm, greasy dinner while the wind gusted around us and the rain poured down in sheets. Now we’re making our way to our cabin in the dark, tripping over tree roots and stepping over puddles and huge fat frogs while my eight-year-old clings to me and whimpers and I try not to think about the death adders, giant goannas, and pythons lurking in the bush. Waves are crashing on the beach and the bush is full of strange night noises, and raindrops slide off of the trees and slither down our necks.
Back at our cabin, we discover a frog in our toilet; he scoots up under the toilet rim when we turn on the light and no amount of poking or flushing coaxes him out. I somehow manage to get my eight-year-old, whose bladder is about to explode, to squat over the toilet while she holds onto me, crying, and then the rest of us take turns squatting in terror, as well. When I close the curtains on our windows, the curtain and curtain rod fall on my head—not once, but three times. And when my husband and I finally crawl into our tiny double bed, the bed is so saggy that our hips practically touch the floor.
As I listen to the rain pattering on the roof and try to ignore the certainty that something is biting my legs, I remind myself that we have four more days to go, and, gritting my teeth, will myself to fall asleep.
Day Two
The rain pounding on our roof signals the beginning of another dreary, wet day on Ghetto Island (as my seventeen-year-old has affectionately dubbed it). It’s so humid that our pajamas are damp and cold and our hair is plastered to our heads and the windows are covered with condensation. My eleven-year-old has woken up with seventeen mosquito bites (I just hope they’re mosquito bites) and he stomps around the bedroom, whining and complaining and asking to go home until he bumps his head on one of the bunk beds, setting off another round of wailing.
After breakfast we head up to the lodge, where we spend the day reading, emailing, and playing Phase 10 and Scrabble while it rains and pours and eventually drizzles all day. Since we’re wearing shorts (thinking longingly of those winter clothes that we left in our rental car back on the mainland), we wrap towels around our legs and sip peppermint tea to keep warm. At 6:00 we go downstairs to the poop deck for another mediocre dinner (what is that greasy stuff they keep putting on our garlic bread anyway?), after which we return to the loft to play Phase 10 until bedtime.
Back at our trailer (let’s face it: this is no cabin), my husband turns on the bathroom light to see our little frog friend scooting up under the toilet rim. We decide to name him Timmy.
Day Three
Rain, drizzle, rain, and another day spent in the lodge playing card games and watching The Parent Trap for the fifth time (one of the lodge’s three DVDs). Tomorrow is our last full day on the island, and we’ve yet to visit the Reef because no boats will run in this weather. Although I grew up in Australia, I never visited the Great Barrier Reef as a child, so I’m as desperate to see it as my husband and the kids are. But toward late afternoon, when we learn that the weather will still be too rough for boating tomorrow, my husband and I sit in silence as we realize that though we’ve come halfway around the world and are staying mere miles away from the one of the world’s natural wonders, we won’t get to actually see it. I try to come up with a contingency plan—perhaps we could go back to Cairns a day early and take a boat to the Reef from there. But my husband reminds me that it’s raining in Cairns, too, and besides, we have nowhere to stay in Cairns. It looks like we’re stuck on this wretched island for another two days. Hinchinbrook, we wish we knew how to quit you.
There is one bright spot in this day, however: tonight we’re eating in. Back at the trailer, I heat water in a pan that I borrowed from the restaurant kitchen, then cook spaghetti noodles on the little two-burner stove in our tiny kitchen. The kids have congregated in their bunk room to play cards and talk and I can hear them telling jokes and laughing while I fix dinner and my husband runs up the road to the resort’s sole ancient laundry room. As I putter about the kitchen, my eight-year-old pops in to get a drink, and says, her eyes bright, “It’s not so bad staying here after all; it’s actually kind of fun.” We eat plates of spaghetti and cheese as we sit on our beds, then we turn out all the lights and gather in the bunk room to tell stories by flashlight while the rain drums on the roof.
Later, as I drift into sleep, I snuggle against my husband and listen to the waves caressing the shore. Somewhere in the darkness, a lone whip bird whistles.
Day Four
Still raining.
Alas, tragedy strikes this morning when my fifteen-year-old flushes the toilet and, too late, sees Timmy swirling down the drain. We have a moment of silence in Timmy’s honor.
We’re tired of being cooped up in the lodge, so after lunch we decide to hike through the rainforest, rain be damned. We set out for Shepherd Beach, following the trail through groves of ghost gums and paperbacks until we enter a dense, shadowy forest thick with liana vines and huge ferns and palms, tall Blue Quandong trees with their buttressed roots, and moss-covered logs sprouting cream and orange toadstools, iridescent in the dim forest. The only sounds we hear are the patter of rain on the canopy overhead and the occasional bird call.
We arrive at a long, deserted stretch of creamy sand left smooth and flat by the outgoing tide and covered with thousands of tiny bubbles created by small, opaque, ghost crabs. It’s stopped raining, though it’s still cloudy, and a brisk breeze is blowing. We’re the only ones on the beach. We explore tide pools, scramble over boulders, and run up and down the beach, arms outstretched. It’s just us and a mile of pale, smooth sand; the gray ocean, stretching out forever; and the sky, luminous as a pearl.
Later, we eat our last dinner on the poop deck. As usual, our steaks are mostly fat, the mashed potatoes are too garlicky, the bread is greasy, and the desserts are bland, while the septic tank fumes wash over us in waves so thick we can taste them. Yet, somehow, tonight we don’t mind.
Day Five
Of course, today the rain slows to a drizzle and then eventually stops, and the clouds are breaking up—looks like it’s clearing up at last. No doubt there’ll be a boat out to the Reef tomorrow. I try not to think about it as I wash our breakfast dishes in the little kitchen sink.
After lunch, the Hinchinbrook ferry arrives and idles in the little cove. Long before the boat is due to leave, my fifteen-year-old runs to get on the boat, calling for the rest of us to hurry. No chance this boy is going to be left behind.
After we board and the boat pulls out, I snap a final picture of the “Splendid Isolation” sign. When we head out to sea—now smooth as satin—we can see the Reef, just barely out of reach. I sigh. My eight-year-old leans her head on my shoulder and, with complete seriousness, says, “That was my favorite place to stay of our whole trip. Can we come back someday?”
I choke back a laugh. “Maybe,” I say, when what I really mean is, “Not a chance.” Still, as we skim over the ocean toward the mainland—and decent meals and hot baths and crisp clean sheets—I look back one more time at Hinchinbrook, at its green hills rising up out of a silvery sea. And I smile.
Tell us about your most memorable vacation. Have you ever had a trip that didn’t go as planned (or, any that did go as planned)? What were some of those unexpected moments and how did they enrich your experience?
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