Lockdown-weary Australians desperate for a break from housebound humdrum are snapping up every last summer holiday booking on the Great Barrier Reef.
Hamilton Island is almost completely booked out over December and January after the Queensland Government finally threw open its borders to travellers again.
The school holidays rush was prompted by the state announcing restrictions would relax entirely for fully vaccinated Christmas travellers.
From November 19, unless you are coming from a hotspot, vaccinated travellers will be able to enter Queensland without quarantining.
And from December 17, even those from hotspots will be able to enter the state so long as they are vaccinated and test negative in the 72 hours before arriving.
Lockdown-weary Australians desperate for a break from housebound humdrum are snapping up every last summer holiday booking on the Great Barrier Reef (Pictured a holidaymaker gazing out at the Whitsundays)
Now Australians across the country are booking their slice of summer paradise after almost two years of Covid hell.
And Sydneysiders with cabin fever are at the head of the queue for a tropical Christmas.
'We had a surge of bookings from New South Wales after the announcement on Queensland's border re-opening,' Hamilton Island chief executive Glenn Bourke told the Courier-Mail.
'With international tourism restricted, Australians have fallen back in love with our own backyard and there's no backyard quite like Hamilton Island.'
Although Hamilton Island is all but booked out, the state still has other island escapes for sunseekers, including luxury five-star resort Hayman Island, pictured here
The plan to re-open Queensland is based on vaccination rates, with the first easing kicking in when the state is predicted to hit 70 per cent, and then eased further a month later once the state hits 80 per cent.
Queensland is lagging behind almost the every other state in Australia in its vaccine rollout, having only just
