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Magnetic Island
Wednesday June 30th
I had a particularly lazy day Tuesday watching football and movies: I watched and thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Lovely Bones’ despite the overwhelming weight of critical disdain cast on the movie from all and sundry. Some people think it’s just a morbid pile of trash, sordid and miserable, pretentious and ugly. I don’t care! I found the whole thing to be very thought-provoking. I particularly enjoyed the Brian Eno soundtrack. In fact, I ended up doing something I rarely do: watching the whole movie twice - this was a slight accident - I missed the beginning first time then watched it over to see that part and didn’t stop! Antony and I went out for a drink later at a couple of the bars after walking all around town. I wasn’t feeling 100 percent tiptop - maybe my lazy day was more than just being lazy!
On Monday, I had been a particularly hard working little tourist. I walked the length of Flinders Street, then the entire length of the Strand, Townsville’s beach front walk and back as far as the aquarium where I spent a couple of hours chatting with Marie who was originally
Ibis
I guess they're considered to be flying rats - but exotic for me! from Northern Ireland but was now working here in the aquarium and watching huge sharks and the like swanking about. I picked up a fascinating tidbit about clown fish - you know, the Nemo Fish. Apparently, clown fish are born as males. They cluster around one larger female at the local anemone. Only one male gets to mate. If something happens to the single female, say death for example, then one of the males will swell-up, and, hey presto, become female, in fact convert into THE female of the little group. That’s right: he becomes a she and all is well in Nemo-world. Who knew? Probably you did - but I didn’t.
Also, found out about all the local nasty little jellyfish and their dreadful ways. Gosh! They make netted enclosures on the beaches for safe swimming since the sting of box jellyfish can be deadly, but the irakanji, an equally deadly jellyfish is so small it goes right through the nets. I mean - why not just make the nets with a smaller gauge? What’s the point of making the netted enclosure if the most deadly little bastard sails right through?
After suffering through my daily two
World Cup games, Wednesday began cloudy. I decided to postpone my Magnetic Island field trip, but by the time I was ready to go, the weather had cleared. I set off towards the bicycle rental shop which turned out to be way further and way more ugly a walk than I had anticipated, so I found a way to walk back into the center of town, then ended up an hour later at the ferry terminal. It was just a twenty minute ferry ride across to the island, where I jumped onto a bus that whizzed me, zigzagging, to the far end of the island. Parakeets everywhere. Very hilly and exotically vegetated. Seemed like a pleasant tourist place. I sat at the beach for an hour at the far end of the island supping a beer and watching the sun glitter off the water before getting back on the bus, spinning back down island, back on the ferry, and back through Townsville in time for tea!
Quite a pleasant afternoon, but it’s going to be more tricky meeting people here. I’m just another ‘f*cking pomme’ here - unlike my trips to more foreign climes, or on my bike rides.
Having said that, I suspect the ‘Ozzies’ on the whole, to be a notably friendly and easy-going group of people. We’ll see what happens when I head off on my own!
See you on the flypaper…
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