We stopped in at Boat Port anchorage on Lindeman Island as we had read there was some walks around the island. We found a trail that went through the middle of the island to the abandoned Club Med resort on the south-east side. It was like walking around a ghost town, abandoned airstrip, abandoned staff accommodation and a resort that looked awesome in its glory days. Now only a caretaker and his son keeping an eye on the deserted resort, they came out to meet us on their golf cart, beer in hand to find out what we were doing.
The resort, like many of the resorts in the Whitsundays came across hard times after the financial downturn and others have suffered through cyclone troubles. It was only open a short time, closed in 2011. The land has been sold to a Chinese developer and they plan on demolishing the existing resort and building a new one for $600 million. This will house about 500 guests and offer around 300 job opportunities for the local economy.
We stopped at another anchorage on Long Island called Happy Bay with another deserted resort (not so happy after all) or I should say that the buildings still exist and only a caretaker around. This is a good anchorage so we have been here a couple of nights. Took a hike on the island to Sandy Bay and the headland, about 12 km round trip.
It is amazing someone’s dreams and vision failure becomes opportunity to others (Chinese)