Sunday Mail Brisbane
5 March 2000

Brampton Island always shines – even when it’s raining, says LEE MYLNE

There's a run on sweatshirts and plastic raincoats at the resort shop the day after our arrival on Brampton Island. The weather has let us down, visions of lazing in the balmy tropical sunshine and floating in warm ocean currents turning to intense conversation about how best to salvage the few days of cold, wind and fairly chilly water.

But if the weather was disappointing, the island wasn't. Brampton's natural beauty far exceeded expectations and there is enough to keep the most active holidaymaker busy.

Brampton and its little known neighbour, Carlisle Island, are both national parks, with walking trails and pristine beaches. The narrow channel between the islands disappears at low tide, allowing guests on Brampton to walk across to uninhabited Carlisle.

The islands are just two of 70 in the Cumberland Group, named by Captain Cook as he sailed past in 1770. Many of the islands' features bear the names of places in England's Cumberland district, now a part of Cumbria.

Walking on Brampton is not to be missed. The 7km circuit of the island is a relatively easy walk, hilly in places, but with lots of places to pause and admire the spectacular views. Breaks in the clouds and the occasional flash of Whitsunday sunshine turn the water azure.

I'm rewarded by encounters with grey kangaroos, a pair of nesting yellow-footed scrubfowl, all warily watching as I pause, then rustle on my plastic-protected way. Other tracks branch off to Brampton's seven beaches and to a lookout point – a fairly steep hike but with extensive views of the ocean and Carlisle Island. The closest western and therefore sheltered beach, Western Bay, has picnic tables, a water tank and toilet, and is only 2km from the resort.

Dinghy Bay, just a short walk from the resort on the eastern side of the island, is the venue ntwice a week for a breakfast on the beach, hauled there by resort staff and probably idyllic in the right weather.

The dunes are shaded by beach she-oaks and the rocky headlands lined with hoop pines.

There are guided walks on Carlisle, which has a wonderful melaleuca forest, a few remains of a shipwreck, but no formed tracks.