Blogs from Magnetic Island, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 13

After few hours drive from Airlie beach we arrived in Townsville where we took the ferry to Magnetic Island. It's a tropical island with 320 days average sunshine every year. I was really happy when I arrived here, this place is just chill... no worries, just relaxing. Actually this has to be the most relaxed place so for in the travels in Oz. This hostel is more like a resort. Just spending the day listening to music, resting by the sea. Enjoying the heat and the sun! This place reminds me a bit of the Thailand but without the fire games of course :) We took part in a pub quiz where we came 2nd. There was a round involving an Egg race! For the price, free kayaking and big breakfast. Resturant food seems like an ... read more

Wow what a New Years Eve night we had. Bungalow Bay was going off. We did 80 meals (considering we normally do about 45) this was quite a lot but with the great Head Chef doing his magic and leading the charge we got through them all with no hassles at all. Geb was busy on the bar, although was told they could slip in a few quiet beers as they worked! We also got brought in a bottle of Yellow Champagne from the boss - very nice indeed. I joined Geb at about 10:30 after he had already had one shot of limbo with quite a few willing participants. There were some people mucking around with it so I started it off again. Loads of fun. We had the open air big screen playing a ... read more

In 1770 Captain Cook sailed by an Island when his compass stopped working, blaming this Island he then named it Magnetic Island. No other ships however have encountered this problem and it is now thought that in the nearby town of Townsville, its 'hill' (1 metre short of being a mountain) is responsible due to its excessive ore quantities. To get to Magnetic Island we had the unfortunate experience of spending some time around Townsville and we found it to be rather wierd. It was a saturday afternoon but the town centre was extremely quiet, the only people we saw were drunken aborigine's which although added charecter it didn't make us want to stay any longer than we had to. We took advantage of the Islands relatively small size (the island is only 12km in length) ... read more

We are now on Magnetic Island after arriving yesterday. It's amazing! It's a beautiful place and we've hired a car, so we have seen a bit of the island. Tonight Ollie, Heather and I made dinner and a possum ran up and tried to take Heather's share! Heather told it no and I roared, so it ran away. Hehe. It's lovely here, tropical island with palm trees! We're going to go kayaking probably tomorrow and try some snorkelling. Drove to a random pub tonight with Heather - it's so nice to get out and be able to drive! Our car has no doors, lol and no roof. It's very strange. We have named it Magnum! It is white with red flame seats! ... read more

There's been a bit of a delay here as my camera was stolen whilst I was out on Tuesday night. Nevertheless I had a fantastic day trip on Wednesday into the Atherton Tablelands, a fun guided tour mostly spent swimming in cold rivers and pools, but also involving a walk through the rainforest, and some platypus spotting. The last place we swam was the unreal Lake Eacham, a warm volcanic crater lake in a national park. It was raining, and the water was about 26 degrees - a great relief after all of the cold mountain streams. I saw turtles, pelicans and cormorants there. I should hopefully be receiving some photos from friends I met on the trip. I left Cairns the next morning on the Greyhound bus for Mission Beach. I ended up staying at ... read more