MAGNETIC ISLAND

---

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 stay as starting prices for apartments in Nelly Bay are $425,000

The name of the island came about because of the apparent "magnetic" effect it had on the ship's compass of Captain Cook as he passed the island when sailing up the east coast of Australia in 1770.

As usual the weather is nice and warm and its not long before we jump on our bus that takes us through Nelly bay and towards Picnic Bay. Our hostel is the X base hostel just before Picnic Bay and on arrival its apparent that its a 18-21 year olds hostel as the music is banging and the staff are about as helpful as a fart in a spacesuit.

Our dorm has 4 sets of bunk beds in it and its actually quite nice and cool and will do for the two nights we are staying. Back at reception we try to get our internet wi fi sorted out and its nearly half a hour before anyone actually knows what the password is. The problem with this place is that most of the staff are travellers themselves just doing weekly work and they obviously dont give a toss about their job nor the guests.

We order two beers and head back to our room where we spent the entire evening watching movies on the laptop. We could hear the chart music playing away well into the night and the noise was a bit o.t.t.
God we are feeling our age now and its obvious we're not the only ones as our roomies are having a right old gripe aswell and it now apparent why we're all in the furthest away dorm from the bar area.
Its all good though as we have lots planned for tomorrow and will fill our day up before leaving the day after, this place is just a bed to us and its comfortable enough.

Friday 3rd December

We got up nice and early and grabbed our free breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast. It was better than we thought it would be.
We walked along the beach road for about a mile until we arrived at Nelly bay and the bike hire shop where our moped was waiting for us. Once all the proper paper work was done and dusted we paid our deposit and set off on our 50cc twin seater moped which was easy and fun to ride. We have the bike until 5pm which is ample time to explore the island which is excellent value at $50 hire for the day.

Our first stop is going to be the furthest point East to Horseshoe bay which is about 7 or 8 miles away. The ride was cool as we passed through Nelly bay and Arcadia. We had our helmets on and the bike easily did 40mph with the two of us on it so we took it nice and gentle around the mountains and booted her up on the straights. We are playing safety first as every time a car came up behind us i pulled over to let them pass as we are in no hurry. Its a good crack as we toot our horn at other mopeds coming the other way! Meeee meeeep!!

We've arrived at Horseshoe bay, parked up and took on some water as its scorching hot now.
There are two walks from here which can take you to both Balding Bay and Radical Bay.
First we have to cross a water filled creek just across the beach and we've got trainers and socks on! Not thinking there were we? Hey ho, we wade in up past our ankles and proceed to cut through the mountain pass into the dense jungle walks. We walk about 900 metres to the junction which points left or right for either Balding or Radical. We choose Balding first which is 600 metres of carnage as there's a path but its very beaten and takes you across streams and large boulders and down water filled paths. At one point we are thinking we are lost but the path is always nearby if you keep your wits about you.
We are almost there and we see and hear screeching of White parrots overhead and they have a very loud shrill so i guess they are protecting a nest nearby.

I can see the jungle clearing up ahead and as we turn into a proper path we see a public toilet and then white sand which leads us onto one of the most beautiful beaches we've ever seen.

We've finally arrived at Balding Bay and we've just noticed a sign that says its a nudist beach so this could be interesting. There zero people here, we are the only two so we walk about freely, with our clothes on i might add, and take in the breathtaking rock formations and beach areas.

There's more white parrots flying about making a noise but apart from them and the gentle sound of the ocean, Balding bay is heaven. We sat down on the soft sand for a while and spotted all the little crab holes and sand balls all along the beach which are pretty cool. Time to leave but that's hard to do as you know your leaving heaven and back into the hell of the jungle again.
600 metres later and we reach our sign junction and head for Radical bay this time which is 800 metres from this point through a slightly better path.
We have the added pleasure of angry wasps every step of the way on our route to Radical and to make matters worse we've run out of water and are dehydrated which has slowed us down somewhat. We passed a stream which looked pretty clean and we took it in turns to fill our bellies up with water and it did the trick as we were off and making good progress now.
Some nice spiders and more wasps to accompany us until we reached a gorgeous field of yellow and pink flowers which were knee height as we waded through towards Radical beach which didn't have a patch on Balding Bay. Don't get me wrong Radical bay is lovely but it has a road that leads to the main road and has suffered tyre and traffic damage around the edges of the beach which spoils it somewhat as theres the odd sign of litter too. The actual beach itself is nice and there's a cool looking sail boat anchored just off shore.

Well, theres not much else to do but to head back to Horseshoe Bay via the jungle so we push on and its scorching hot and we are dreaming of a nice cold can of juice when we get back. It took us under half an hour to get back to Horseshoe beach and across the water creek and it was good to see our moped still waiting for us. We took a breather and drank our dreamy can of juice before setting off out Horseshoe and towards the Forts lookout.

The Forts is a former Australian Royal Navy artillery battery in the hinterland of Horseshoe. Built in 1942/43 the battery operated from July 1943 until the end of World War 2. Most of the buildings no longer remain, the fortified concrete command post, observation post, munitions bunker and gun emplacements still remain along with the foundations of many of the buildings. These remains form part of the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service's The Forts Walk, a 3.8 km environmental and heritage walk which we are going to attempt.

We have been advised to keep on the lookout for wild Koala's which can often be seen sleeping in the high branches of trees. We park up the bike and set off in the blazing heat. Its an uphill slog most of the way and we are sweating bucketloads and stop for a breather when two Dutch walkers alerted us to a koala not far from here. We get moving quickly and as we approach the bend where we were to look we saw our first wild koala bear sleeping high up a tree. He looked so peaceful and we quietly took some photos and carried on our way to the top of the forts high up on the mountain. We arrived at the top and most of the forts are closed off to public due to maintenance but it was fine as we enjoyed the views all the same. The path is rugged with stones and its best to take your time coming down and we eventually made it back to the moped and a well earned drink of water.

We then proceeded to drive our bike to the little village of Arcadia which is famous for toad racing and a small population of rock wallabies which hang around the beach. We scooted past without stopping as we were enjoying the lazyness of the bike as we've done so much walking today already. After a few miles of winding road we arrived back in Nelly Bay and passed through and headed for Picnic Bay which is not far from our hostel. The sun is beating down rather hot as we arrived at Picnic Bay which was a nice little spot but not much to do here but admire the views back to townsville.

The west point is an exclusive area further down the road here but its strictly for bikes only and its 2 hour walk which we couldnt manange seeing that our moped had to be returned within the next hour.

After dropping the moped off we walked back to our hostel, after showering and freshening up we ordered dinner. Jills dinner came within 5 minutes and my dinner arrived well over a hour later so you can imagine the state i was geting into.
I stupidly stuck my nose into the kitchens affairs and came face to face with the biggest cluster f*** i have ever seen in a kitchen. I received my dinner free of charge but by then it was cold and i had lost my appetite after seeing the state of the kitchen enviroment.

Carnage then ensued as rubbish chart topping music was being blasted out loud and it felt like a school disco as teenagers were running all over the place, half naked while playing drinking games. Yip, ten years ago we would've joined in the party but nowadays, dare i say it, we prefer a quiet walk along the beach. Its not long before we're on the horlicks with our slippers on by the fire eh Jill? 😊

Bedtime was fun as we had the most horrendous thunderstorm which felt like it was directly above us and was so close our dorm shook and was lit up with lighting on and off for around 2 hours. It felt intense and it was an experience in itself.
It was a godsend as the party at the other end of the hostel complex was a wash out and the music ceased! Thats Karma for you! 😊

---

Photos

Approaching Magnetic Island
our hostel in the distance

Comments

[Fred]

Colourful Place Names
BALDING BEACH, HORSEHOE BAY DON'T VISIT WILLIELESS BAY. FRED