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HAYMAN ISLAND, Queensland, Australia - Just plain dumb, wet luck.
That's all it was. And that's how friend Aurelio and I sort-of braved the cyclone and flood, ducked a serious dunking, and landed - orphans of the storm - on Hayman Island, which is not exactly a refugee camp. Unless, of course, you consider the Ritz, Four Seasons, or Boston Harbor hotels flophouses. Orphans, we, who hit the jackpot like Little Orphan Annie.
Daddy Warbucks, in this case, was a sumptuous Frenchman named Philippe Beaucher-Coyle. Philippe operates a new railroading venture called the Great South Pacific Express, an offshoot of the renowned Orient Express, both of which make American trains look like . . . well . . . American trains.
Debuting this year, the Great South Pacific runs some 850 miles miles through Queensland from Brisbane, the glistening seaside state capital, to Cairns, a springboard to the Great Barrier Reef. Eventually, as modern track is laid, it will be a 3,000-or-so-mile round-Australia shot: Perth-Adelaide-Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane-Cairns.
However, when we arrived ticketed in Brisbane for the "All-aboard!" command to ride this chichi choo-choo, Margaret Dalli, the charming elfin emissary of M. Beaucher-Coyle, uttered a mournful declaration that sounded like something associated with baseball: "No game - rain." Also, in our case, "Wait till next year. But you get a rain check."
Oh.
And what rain! Nothing half-hearted. All-out, as Australian weather can be. The deluge had sired a horrendous, tragic flood that, submerging the community of Gympie and killing seven, was the villain. Fortunately, we had made it through Gympie by car only hours before the Mary River rose astoundingly almost 70 feet overnight. But the look of water creeping up the railbed and onto the highway had been ominous.
"If that's our train's tracks, we're out of business," Aurelio had predicted accurately, stepping on the gas to get out of town.
Still, Dalli and Beaucher-Coyle weren't party poopers. "Instead, we're sending you to Hayman Island by plane, bus, and boat," she said, "as a replacement for the train trip. The flood did us in for a while, and there's no point to Cairns at the moment because there's a cyclone in the area.
"I know you're disappointed, but you'll like Hayman very much."
This, it developed, was like apologizing with, sorry, you can't have strawberry shortcake - but as consolation there's peach melba, blueberry pie a la mode, and baked Alaska. Disappointment is just as easily swallowed on this island that lacks nothing in the way of sun-blessed resort comforts unless you're looking for ski lodges and slopes.
How can I put Hayman in one sentence? It's Eden with plumbing and an understated, elegant, architectural makeover.
Somewhat advanced from its early days as a 1930s getaway, a time when visitors, put up in tents, were advised: "Bring your own cutlery, linen, lamp, and dish." There's plenty of that stuff to go around now, amid statuary, paintings, regal gardens, shops, handsomely decorated library and game rooms, six fine restaurants, a nightclub, suites, and bedrooms that kings would OK (and sometimes show up to tenant.)
As the northernmost of the Whitsunday Islands clustered off Australia's northeast coast, Hayman first came to the attention of the outside world in 1936 when the American writer Zane Grey, a keen big-game fisherman, appeared to indulge his avocation and make a movie called "White Death." Its star was a fearsome (though not very credible) sea creature, possibly grandfather of "Jaws." An unmemorable production, although Grey did leave his mark by planting the first of crowds of cocoanut palms.
Many, thronged by sometimes squawky cockatoos, are visible from the ocean-fringed breakfast room, the one place where you realize that quite a few other folks are sharing this idyll. Basically the clientele is spread out, not much noticed in their activities or nonactivity. Living quarters are well-spaced among lush gardens, hidden-away swimming pools, fresh- and saltwater. Beaches are long, several of them secluded. At other meals, the various restaurants, (including French, Italian, Australian, Asian) divide the populace nicely.
All this has been installed not long ago, in 1987, when the complex was razed, and rebuilt, lyrically, as in: "I dreamt I dwelled in marble halls - with adjoining beach." So tastefully and subtly luxurious that the tropical essentials remain intact. The sea, solitary beaches, and hilly bush trails were original attractions for privacy-minded, shack-accommodated habitues of Hayman's still-primitive postwar hotel days. Luxury and cordon bleu came to town without knocking out the feeling of as-casual-as-you-want-to-be.
Remaining, too, is perhaps the prime lure of the territory: the Great Barrier Reef. It's right out there, about 30 miles, waiting to be pored over by snorkelers and divers who arrive by boat, as I did 30 years ago, or helicopter this time.
Garry Cochrane, a jocular and informative Aussie, pilots the one we're in. Whirring above Hayman's kindred Whitsundays, green volcanic bumps on a blue Pacific, you feel that if Claude Monet could reappear in a window seat, he'd exclaim: "Voila! Fantastique! A Pacific variation on my lily pad theme. Where's my easel?"
Cochrane, more a man for landing pads, says, "Only 10 of the 74 Whitsuns are inhabited. The rest are national parks. There are 2,000 reefs out here in any number of shapes" - shadowy forms lurking in a vast coverlet of spritzing turquoise. Some seem amoebas. Heart Reef is obviously named, Hook Reef a sinuous snake.
"Just below us, now, is the place we think is the most beautiful beach in the world."
Certainly it's a contender, lonely Whitehaven Beach, stretching almost four miles on Whitsunday Island, the group's namesake. Acres of silica, blinding ivory sand, are cuddled by the sea in swirls of mint, jade, chartreuse and lime. Later Aurelio visited to report: "Gorgeous beyond gorgeous . . . at Hall Inlet the water and sand blend as a wet verdant rainbow."
The helicopter finds its own island 44 miles beyond the mainland, a plain concrete pad where launches await for a short trip to ReefWorld. Another platform, but inhabited, this way station is devoted to providing visitors' lunch and looking. Naturally fresh seafood abounds. Not only at a buffet but in-your-face for those who go overboard in masks and flippers to peep at the Reef.
Millions and millions of coral, requiring sunny water to do their construction jobs, continue the unending task of reef-building. Their creation: a mysterious marine junkyard of misshapen chunks, prongs, piles, protuberances. It wanders irregularly and erratically, an underworld whose stunning residents finningly flash by in a kaleidescopic blizzard of sizes and colors.
Marine biologist Jackie Shields guides a quartet of snorkelers, offering a swimming commentary of who's-who and what's-what. Shiny green oozy anemones and brightly-hued parrotfish may be the most confused locals, she says. "The anemones are born male, but eventually become female. Just the opposite for the parrot fish, born female. They don't know who they are."
Nothing is perfect.
But the Hayman Resort comes close. That's the feeling as we picnic beneath a breadfruit tree after a long rising-and-falling wilderness walk to deserted Blue Pearl Bay. A moderate surf rustles shards of coral, and as dusk approaches squadrons of bats take off out of a valley, darkening the last of the sun.
"Vampires in paradise?" wonders Aurelio. "But, I don't think so. They haven't targeted our necks. Yet."
Nor do they, deciding to forage elsewhere. As we do for dinner, wrapped in the soft, lilting embrace of a moon-streaked night in a Japanese garden. Outside the Oriental bistro, our table is at the edge of a pond glimmering with reflections from stone lanterns. Frogs warble gently, a waterfall gushes and a stand of bamboo shudders in a peaceful breeze. We could be in a remote corner of Hokkaido.
Jimmie Mok, the engaging maitre d'hotel, is very attentive, suggesting succulent marine dishes such as Vietnamese steamed scallops in lemon grass, grilled spicy fresh water barramundi, and black-peppered Moreton Bay bug, a native shellfish.
"And what about green ants, Mr Mok?" I ask.
"Pardon me, sir?"
The other day, Aurelio, taking a grounds tour with garden supervisor Geoff Hansen, had experienced a timeless aboriginal gastronomical treat. Plucking a green ant from a gum tree, Hansen showed her how to eat the plump posterior. "Tasted like lemon nectar," she approvingly reported, "which, of course, it was. We won't starve as long as the ant population holds up."
Right. "So?" I query Mok.
"We don't have ants on the menu, sir." He is polite but firm.
As I say, nothing is perfect.
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