25th - 26th December 2004
We had three fantastic days on Wilson. The food and snorkeling were absolutely fantastic, the tents were gorgeous, and overall the experience was really wonderful.
A standard day went like this:
Wake early (literally with the birds),
Go to the shower block (sound awful, but they were wonderful - an individual beautifully decorated shower room for each tent, fully stocked with Molton Brown products, fresh towels, and bath robes)
Go to breakfast in the Longhouse. The chef would have already laid out fresh fruit, juices, coffee, pastries, bread etc, and would be waiting to see what you wanted cooked for breakfast. I asked for Eggs Benedict as a joke, thinking there was no way they would have supplies, but he did it, including hollandaise from scratch, and it was superb
Back to the tent to get snorkeling gear.
Snorkel, lie in the sun, swim, hang out in the community tent
Lunch in the Longhouse (we had wonderful lunches ranging from beef fillet, to whole baked salmon)
Sleep off lunch
Snorkel
Sundowners on the beach watching sunset and turtles coming up to lay eggs
Dinner, then more turtle watching
Drinks in the Longhouse
Bit tough really.....
Unfortunately, on the first night of having access to the open kitchen (two fully stocked fridge with wonderful wines, chocolates, cheeses, cold meats, beers, soft drinks, everything really) I had a little too much to drink and managed to mistake the lens strap for the carrier strap on my camera. The upshot of this was the camera flying through the air and landing with an ominous thud of hard sand....So the Canon unfortunately had a little sulk and refused to turn on for two days after this treatment (well, who can blame it!), so I don't have as many Photos as I would like. I do have a fair bit of video footage which will be on the DVD however, including a very spooky section in night-vision mode with the mutton birds calling. Oh, and the Canon did eventually forgive me and come back for the last day, although the image stabiliser now doesn't....
I would highly recommend Wilson - a more relaxing holiday, with better food, simply doesn't exist! The bird life is amazing (and if you've never heard a mutton bird (or shearwater) then you're in for an experience - take industrial strength ear plugs as they cry all night), and the turtles and amazing sealife (we saw rays, reef sharks, more turtles, and loads of reef fish). And see below for a picture of my tent - not exactly roughing it, is it?
