Beautiful Maggie!

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We woke up early today on "Maggie". We have learned that Australians abbreviate the names of anything they can - Brisbane is "Brizzy", Tasmania is "Tazzy", and Magnetic Island is "Maggie". I'm absolutely certain there are numerous other abbreviations we just haven't come across yet. So, our morning on Maggie started early because we had a half day kayak trip to catch on the other side of the island. Since our car hire company did not allow us to bring our car onto Maggie via the ferry, she is parked back at the terminal on the mainland and we are at the mercy of public transit here. That may sound complicated, but truly there is only one main road on the island and two buses that spend the entire day driving back and forth, so it's quite easy to get where you are going when you want to get there. So we caught the bus at 7:40 to Horseshoe Bay and kayaked with five other people until noon. The kayaking was beautiful! We saw many green sea turtles in the bay and several flying fish. We stopped along the way at a gorgeous deserted beach (Radical Bay) and spent two hours walking in the water, relaxing on the boulders strewn along the edges of the beach, and enjoying the company of our fellow travelers. It was a great way to spend the morning. We got our exercise, too...it was extremely windy this morning!!! We stopped for lunch at Horseshoe before hopping the bus back to our room to unpack and repack our backpack, take a quick 30 minute power nap, and hop the bus to The Forts trailhead for an afternoon hike. The Forts is a beautiful area, and as you may imagine, an area where the Australian armed forces built fortresses to guard the Pacific during WWII. We really enjoyed seeing the sites and climbing up to the lookouts where 300 degree views of Maggie, the Queensland mainland, and the Coral Sea take your breath away. It was beautiful! A much more peaceful and less fearsome view than those soldiers stationed there had 70+ years ago. A major bonus of the hike was the opportunity to watch koalas and rock wallabies in the wild along the trail. It was awesome to see these unique animals going about their business as we watched. Special moments indeed! Tomorrow we ferry back to the mainland and continue our trip north. This trip is going by too quickly!

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