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Published: October 22nd 2009
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From Cairns, I caught a bus south to Townsville; then I took a 30 min ferry across to Magnetic Island. I stayed at Base hostel and it was so beautiful! My first full day on Magnetic Island and I headed to Horseshoe Bay to do some hikes. The first hike was a 1.5 hour walk to Balding Bay, where there was some beautiful forests and rock formations; part of the forest had recently burned and was all black. It was a beautiful Bay. I went for a little swim then headed off to Radical Bay. Another beautiful bay with amazing blue water, forests and rocks. After making it back to town and having some lunch I was off to the Forts walks and to hopefully find some koalas. The walk was amazing and overlooked a few bays around the island, forests, and the mainland. Part way up the track and a bunch of people were looking up in the trees... it was a koala! It was pretty far up and was sleeping, but it was awesome to see a koala in nature! I walked to the top of the trail, an old fort, with amazing views of the island, then headed
back down. As I was walking along, I heard something that sounded like a motorcycle starting, a grunting sound. I walked back into the forest a bit and found another koala sitting in the tree, not nearly as high as the first one. It was so cute and was moving around!
I was going to snorkel and canoe the next day but the sea was too rough so instead I got picked up by some friends in a Moke, a tiny topless "car", and we went to Picnic Bay. We walked around a bit then I had to head back to mainland Australia to head south again. I got off the bus in Ayr and was supposed to dive the S.S. Yongala, one of the top 10 best dive sites in the world, but on arrival found out their boat was broken and I was out of luck! Sad day. I spent the next three hours chatting with the locals at the bar waiting for the next bus. It was a very interesting three hours since I don't think they get too many backpackers around!
So instead of stopping in Ayr for the night, I moved on to my
next destination, Airlie Beach. I met up with Philip, my dive buddy form Cairns and chilled at the lagoon for a few hours. I saw some guys playing rugby so, of course, I went and had a chat with them. I watched the Australia v. New Zealand game with them and had a few beers with them. The next day, they invited me to go to Hamilton Island with them, where they work, for Sunday Sess. Hamilton Island was an amazing place to watch sunset! After that we headed down to the esplanade where there was live music, dancing, food, and drinks. It was a really cool night! I spent the next morning exploring a little of the island and enjoying some sun! Back to Airlie Beach and I tried to confirm my sailing trip to the Whitsundays, unlukily for me, there were not enough peple on my boat and it was cancelled. Lukily, earlier on I had ran into some people I met on Magnetic Island, and their boat had some extra space on it. We set off the next night to the Whitsundays on Anaconda III; Anaconda III is a 101 ft mega yacht. Awesome! We spent the
first night in Hooks pass, and had an early morning setting off to Whitehaven beach, allegedly one of the best beaches in the world. The sand is an amazing white color, it is 98% silica, and feels like powder under your feet; the water is also amazingly clear! It is a beautiful place! We spent a few hours on Whitehaven Beach, sailed around a bit more (finally got to open the sails), then headed back to Hooks Pass for the night. The next morning we set off early towards the outer reef. It was rough trip out there, some of us enjoyed it more than others... Once we were at the reef if was much calmer. I did a snorkel and a dive at a place called Bait Reef. It was a beautiful place to snorkel/dive with beautiful coral, turtles, a beautiful female Maori Wrasse and tons of other fish! The reef is amazing! We stayed at the reef for the night and witnesses a very unusual sunset. There were dust storms to the south of us which made the sky really hazy. The sun had dissapeared from site about an hour earlier than sunset should have been. A night
at the reef and then back to the Whitsundays for our final day. We stoped at a place called Blue Pearl Bay on Hayman Island, where we got to do a fish feeding dive. It was crazy!!! We went down about 4m and had waterbottles full of bread and fish food, and the fish knew what we had... We sat on the bottom and heaps of fishes were everywhere, we kept getting bumped into by a massive Maori Wrasse. He was about 4 -5 ft long and was hungry. He had crazy lips that would come away from his face and try to grab the water bottles, so funny. He was huge! After feeding time we swam around and checked out some other areas and some of the fish continued to follow us the whole dive. After the dive we had to head back to Airlie. One more night on the town and I was off to Rainbow Beach!
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Toni and Phil
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Hi Lish, What a glorious place! Your blogs are such fun to read, and the photos show the beauty of all the areas you are visiting. Continue to share the great experience with us. We miss you here at home in Colorado! Love, Toni and Phil