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Bus
Got to love the scenery. The bus ride from Airlie Beach to Townsville was about 5 hours or so, which got us in around 7pm. By this time, the sun had basically set. Can’t see much of the town when it’s dark. So we hopped right onto the ferry to Magnetic Island. Supposedly the story behind its name is: when Captain Cook sailed by, his compasses started going a bit crazy and he blamed it on the “magnetic forces” of the island. The actual reason is still unknown. From the ferry, we had to take a local bus to the other side of the island, where we found the local YHA.
Why do we keep staying at YHAs? Well, the main reason is that we have YHA / Hostelling International cards, which get us a discount. It’s enough of a drop that it usually levels out the playing field with other hostels. Another reason is that their info is readily available to us. We can research what amenities the hostel has, how big it is, its exact location and their rates. One of the biggest issues with branching out is just finding the other hostels. They don’t seem to advertise very much. In fact, one
Hostel
These are the little cabins that guests stay in. of their main ways to attract customers is to stand outside the greyhound bus with a sign for their hostel. It’s a good idea, except that a lot of backpackers book their hostels before leaving their previous location. I mean, who wants to run the risk of finding themselves homeless for a night (one of Hillary’s biggest fears, lol).
Anyways, that night we packed it in and after some dinner slept away the night. The next morning though, we finally got to explore the hostel, which was quite different than any other we’d stayed at before. The YHA on Magnetic Island was built like a little community. All the rooms (be it dorm rooms or private) were separate cabins. It made it look like a little village. Really cool. That afternoon we walked to the little town just down the street. You know, nothing more than a single main street, but it was cute. We checked out the scenery, had a nice lunch. Back at the hostel we just relaxed the day away. There was actually a Koala Sanctuary right next door to the hostel, but we decided that we’d been koala’d out in the past couple of weeks.
Hostel - 2
This was the kitchen, with eating area outside. Canvas shaded areas are very common in Australia. lol
Saturday morning however, we’d have our first unpleasant experience regarding our food storage. We woke up to find our food missing. In case you were wondering, food is usually stored in the kitchen along open shelves. You label your food with your name, room number and date of departure, this way the staff can throw out food that is past due. It’s based on the honour system. For the most part, everything works out, but whether someone had taken the food, or it got mistakenly thrown out, our food was gone. It was unfortunate, but luckily we didn’t have anything too valuable in it. It just sucks when you’re really looking forward to breakfast. Lol
We spent the rest of the morning packing up our stuff and heading back out to the ferry. The nice thing about leaving at midday like we did was that this time we got to see everything we missed the first time by (since it was night). Plenty of great ocean views, roads along cliff edges, and awesome green forests. The ride back on the ferry was better too. Instead of darkness and bumpy waves, we could see Magnetic Island slowly shrinking
Hostel - 3
The swimming pool. in the background and really get a sense of where we just were. But once back on land, it was business as usual as we waited for the bus to Mission Beach!
Kevin (and Hillary)
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