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Published: November 18th 2008
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Magnetic Island
....awake and eating The debate may never end as to the best way to see the East Coast - buy a car, rent a car, rent a campervan, hitch or get the bus. There is no doubt that you own wheels give total flexibility, but the reliability or lack of it with some of the wrecks on offer in Cairns doesn’t make it a lot of financial sense or fun. We played safe and bought a hop on / hop off bus ticket to Sydney - a mere AUD$278 for 3 months. We rolled on south missing out Mission Beach and arrived in Townsville. The initial impressions were that it’s reputation was unfounded - but we still left for Magnetic Island with 90% of those departing the service. Maggie is the backpacker island - a short and price competitive ferry ride from Townsville Harbour - sandy beaches, plenty of low price accommodation and wild koalas so you don’t have to resort to viewing in a sanctuary.
“Maggie” is short on big excitement, although if you’ve just become a PADI there is good diving offshore. It’s a good place to chill out for a few days, you can walk to the Forts constructed to
Whitehaven Beach
....6am..before the crowds arrive save Townsville harbour from attack and have your fill of koala viewing - check out the trees en route to the Forts from Horseshoe Bay.
Townsville gets a lot of bad press, but on the whole it would seem unjustified. It’s not high on “must do” items and seems to have got sidetracked in some sort of internal TFNQ competition with Cairns. If you want a beach on your doorstep, Townsville wins hands down! The Townsville night out was an acquired, but interesting experience. The party spirit was further enlivened by the arrival in the port of USS Hopper for a run ashore. The images remain vivid of a young local lady, who after ordering a “jug of rum and coke, one glass and no ice”, retreated into the corner of a bar to await her naval escorts. We sought sanctuary in the Rugby League Club - a huge social club that along with the RSL Club’s are the focus of many an older Australian’s night out and feature cheap beer, cheap feed and usually banks of “pokies”. What else is there to do in Townsville? Do the Strand!
We headed off for Airlie Beach for a Whitsunday
experience. Cairns had been full of “booking” opportunities all offering the standard Whitsunday cruise, Fraser Island 4 x 4, Byron Bay surfing with tempting prices and free nights accommodation thrown in en route. We’d passed on that one and arrived in Airlie Beach without a confirmed plan. At peak season, this could have been a bad plan but in retrospect, this was a good plan. We went to hunt a standby, booked on ProSail Matador (www.prosail.com.au) at a substantial discount and set sail the following day.
Pro-sail had (and would appear to still have) a stable of maxi racing yachts that make some of the other competition look like less than adequate ways of spending your few days afloat. There seemed to be an emphasis on the sailing, as opposed to boozing and when the wind got going, it was clear we were on a Formula 1 craft rather than a go-kart. We visited Blue Pearl Bay, Hayman Island, Cod Harbour, Whitsunday Island, Border Island, Hook Island before heading back to Shutehaven in the 3 day 2 night trip - bear in mind the craft was built for racing just don’t expect a luxury cabin! The highlight was without
doubt Whitehaven Beach, which even after you’ve had an entire East Coast to be “beached out” is a serious piece of sand. We arrived at dawn before the crowds and settled into our beach cricket. The end of another trip led to another night out with the party people - this time the bar at Beaches, Airlie Beach’s home of loud music and on to a “nightclub” called Legends.
We acquired a free day out on Hammer (another Pro-sail yacht) with our booking. Alas, it was cancelled and after making some Fraser Island plans we decided to move on. We left the next day on the overnight bus to Hervey Bay, having seen quite enough of the much vaunted lagoon where the previous night’s excesses are slept off.
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