Mission Beach, Townsville & Magnetic Island

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After our shortish coach journey we arrived at Mission Beach. We were greeted by a funny chap called Richard or as Carl likes to refer to him, Dickie. It was a short journey down the road to our hostel where Dickie's, even stranger, wife Anne checked us into our room. Wasn't a lot happening because of the rain so Carl and I smashed a couple of locals at pool, winning 4-0. The following day we woke to find bright sunshine outside! This was fantastic as the beach was less than 100m away. However we did find that it wasn't because of the weather that not much was happening in Mission Beach...it appears that nothing ever happens in Mission Beach. I actually quite liked it but after a day in the sun the others found themselves bored. This led to a funny 'Goon Night' which ended in a late night swim for Stewey, Claire & I.


The following morning we caught our next Greyhound to Townsville where Carl & I had to stay in a different hostel to the girls because they were rushing to book things and didn't realise there was no room for us! Oh well only an extra 20 minute walk for me and Carl in the blazing sun! At least our hostel was top drawer...yeah. It was the worst hostel I have been in. God knows what I could of caught in those showers! Now from my first impression of Townsville was that I hated it and couldn't wait to move on. The following day however we decided to walk along the water front and find an enclosed rock pool area that we had been told about. It was a fantastic day in the sun and my view of Townsville completely changed. After another medium goon night, morning came and it was time to head on a ferry to Magnetic Island!


We were staying at a Koala sanctuary on the Island so the guys were very excited about holding a Koala. When we started our tour though we found that we would be holding lots of different animals. The list included: a bird, a mini croc, a bearded dragon, a snake and of course the cute koala! We also got to stroke a turtle and an echidna. The whole tour was awesome and so much cheaper than doing it anywhere else! That evening we hired a couple of 4x4s and set off around the island. We went from the north east of Magnetic Island to as far west as we could. It was great fun especially down the 'semi' off-road part which led to West Point. We had the cars the following day too so in the morning we headed for all the different bays one by one. They were all very beautiful and Arthur Bay's lookout was awesome! After one of our stops we headed for somewhere that we had been told you can feed wild rock wallabies. This was another amazing experience as they came within a couple of feet of us and one of them even had a baby in it's pouch! The rest of the day was spent lounging around until the evening where we entered our hostel's quiz. There were 3 jugs of beer up for grabs over the night and we won 2 of them! The first one was for the quickest person to find a coin from 1999 and take it to the bar. Now when it comes to claiming free drinks, I am up there with the best and before most people could even put there hands in their pockets, I had rushed my 20c coin from 1999 to the bar and claimed my free jug! The other 2 jugs were for the winners of the quiz and the funniest team name...which do you think we won? Clearly everyone else's names were awful because we won the funniest team name with 'Really...why do we bother!?'. After a few rounds of beer-mid we called it a night and headed for bed ready to move on to Airlie Beach the following day!

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