Blogs from Magnetic Island, Queensland, Australia, Oceania

After a late-ish night last night, I slept until 9:00am this morning. It was weird going to sleep last night because of all of the strange bird noises that I’m not used to hearing so close! But eventually, I went over. I did wake up at about 3:30 as I was so cold and it’s A/C on, so I turned it off, and took the opportunity to go to the loo, seeing that I’m up already! I soon fell back to sleep though! I went to the shower block, got shifted, dressed , and went off for my breakfast. The rest of the group were already there when I arrived. It was quite busy, so there was quite a wait! But my scrambled eggs with toast on the side took a while to arrive, I’m not ... read more

I was up at 7:00am as today we are leaving Cairns. I had the scrambled eggs with beans and toast, followed by coffee and water this morning. I’m all packed so I brought my stuff down when I went for breakfast to save me going back to the room. At breakfast, I spoke for the first time, with Sarah for the first time today. She is a French girl living in London. All done, and everyone has arrived with their luggage to the minibus. We were all done and ready to leave at 8:15. We have our day bags on the bus with us, and the rest of our luggage is in a lock up trailer. This is because we are parking the bus up, and leaving it behind for a couple of days whilst we ... read more

The East Coast Technically we had been traveling up the east coast for a while but the last two weeks before we got to Cairns, had been very busy. After leaving Brisbane and heading back to the Gold Coast and spending some time at a family friend’s house we headed to Australia Zoo. I had bought Laurent tickets for Christmas and it was finally time to use them. We arrived at the zoo when it opened and spent the entire day there. We went to different shows, giant turtles, otters, crocodiles and tigers. There were a lot of crocodiles at the zoo, but as Australia Zoo is the Steve Irwin Zoo, the crocodile hunter, it made sense. We had an amazing day at the zoo seeing so many different animals. Laurent’s favourite were the Meerkats. ... read more

Sunday 29 November Both of us slept like logs last night after a busy couple of days. Although we did wake early and Pat was making coffee about 7.30 am. We hadn't brought much stuff in from the car, as we had readied overnight stuff only to bring in. So we prepared for the day and took stuff to the car. I spoke with the owner for a short while, about various things. At 8.00 am it was 32℃. We departed at just before 9.30 am and were heading for Townsville which is not far away, so an easy drive. Nothing in particular to stop for along the way unless we choose to do so. We saw a sign for a lookout which appealed and pulled off the road into a layby. Hinchinbrook island was the ... read more

Sarah: Penultimate Australia destination: Magnetic Island. We had wrestled with our options for the last week without a trusty motor in Oz, with The Whitsundays and/or Fraser Island definitely on the list if/when we ever return. We'd been promised nature and snorkelling from Magnetic Island and it seemed easier to do everything a bit more independently and was looking a little less pricey than the alternatives, so 'Maggie' Island (as it's known locally) it was. It was set to be a long-ish day of travelling and both of us had grown soft to long waits and journeys after having the luxury of the car being able to start and stop whenever and wherever we wish. We ('I', while Nick took his place behind the sink washing the dishes as is the usual division of labour during ... read more

Me, Jon and our new pal Q got on the bus for our next destination Magnetic Island. The bus journey was about four hours long and for the first hour the lovely Lozzie B, our friend in Melbourne, called us for a catch up and to make plans for our visit, which made the bus journey go a lot quicker. At about 2pmwe arrived in a small town called Townsville - from here we took a short ferry ride over to the island. The views from the ferry were stunning so I just couldn't wait to get there. From the marina we got on a local bus that dropped us off right outside our hostel - YHA Bungalow Bay, which was also happened to be a koala sanctuary too. After we checked in we were shown ... read more