Blogs from Magnetic Island, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 3

Blog Day 1010 Finally, a well deserved lie in! It was a long day yesterday and as such we both had a good nights sleep and awaking this morning to the daylight and the sound of the beautiful tropical birds that grace this paradise of Magnetic Island. Magnetic Island, so called I believe because of the magnetic effects that it had on the ships compass of Captain Cook when he sailed up the East Coast of Australia. We wandered up to the restaurant for our breakfast, it was not very busy, but some hotel guests were already sat out on the veranda eating breakfast and trying very hard to stop the lorikeets making off with their breakfast, assessing the situation we both opted to eat breakfast indoors. We are expecting some visitors today, but first ... read more

Thursday morning meant a very early start as we had decided to catch the 7:45am ferry to Magnetic Island. The alarm got us up and going but, even with the best of intentions we were always going to struggle to catch that early ferry. We left a little later than planned (my fault) and Graham thought he could make up time by ignoring sat nav and taking a short cut (big mistake). We already had our ferry tickets so we knew we could cut it a bit fine but we also had to acquire and display a car parking ticket. We arrived at about 7:43 and fortunately, even though the car park was busy, a space was available right next to the entrance. We rushed into the terminal and paid for the parking and they registered ... read more

We arrived on Magnetic Island at about 3pm on the Sun Ferry and travelled by the island bus to our backpackers hotel - Bungalow Bay.  This was a great hostel, the staff were a little slow at times but the accommodation and the bar etc were pretty sweet. The first night we just got some dinner and chilled at the bar, but we then got interrupted by a massive amount of bird noise coming from near the park that the hostel site sits on.  I walked over and it was the 4.30pm lorakeet feeding  time.  These birds look quite like mini parrots and the ranger had left out some bread and water for them to feed on.   You could pick up the food and feed them and at one point I had about 10 birds ... read more

"Maggie" is not magnetic The name is from James Cook's expedition, when his compass was messing up, he assumed it was the island. It wasn't, and no one is sure what really happened there. Still, Magnetic Island stuck and locals still refer to it as "Maggie" today. Maggie is a small island off the coast of Townsville, which hosts several interesting terrestrial and marine species. The climate is drier, and some how felt hotter, than that of the main land so you find species on the island that you don't see in Townsville as often. For example, koala's, rock wallabies, and death adders are commonly seen on the island. I started my day early with a brisk, and surprisingly hot, cycle downtown to the ferry terminal. Once there I met up with a couple of ... read more

Thursday 2nd December We left Scotty's Hostel on a free shuttle bus to the greyhound bus stop where we waited a short while for the greyhound that would take us three hours to reach Townsville, our next stop. The journey was uneventful and we arrived at Townsville. The bus stop is directly outside the ferry terminal where we would catch our water taxi across Cleveland Bay to Magnetic Island which is a bonus, no mucking around with bags. Magnetic Island is only 12km from the mainland and its a short thirty five minute ferry across the lovely Coral Sea into the ferry port at Nelly Bay. This 20.1 sq mi mountainous island in Cleveland Bay has effectively become a suburb of Townsville, with 2,110 permanent residents. Judging by the house prices, its an exclusive island to ... read more