Townsville, Magnetic Island and the SS Yongala

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Next installment of the Queensland blogs! This area was one of my favourites in Australia so far, as I saw so many completely amazing things.

I was up early to catch my 7.45am bus to Townsville, but it wasn't too bad a journey as I managed to sleep most of the way.
It was nice and warm still when I arrived in Townsville, so I went for a walk around town to orientate myself, though alas, most of the shops were closed or closing. It became apparent quite quickly that Townsville was a bit of a quiet place to be on a Monday. Still, my walk allowed me to collect some leaflets from the tourist information place and plan what I wanted to do for the next few days. After a lot of thought, I booked a dive trip to the SS Yongala wreck, and just prayed that I wouldn't be disappointed by this dive, like I'd been disappointed with the Great Barrier Reef.

I stopped briefly in the cultural centre, and read all about the aboriginal people from the area, learnt about their customs and how they were treated when the Europeans arrived in Australia. It was very sad, and ever since I've arrived in Australia, all I've heard is about the negative impact the first settlers had. They took the land from the indigious people, imposed curfews and restrictions, and in just over 200 years, Australians have managed to make half the native mammal species extinct......

I spent the next day at the Townsville Aquarium and the Queensland museum of Townsville. The Aquarium boasts the largest live coral reef within an aquarium and it was pretty darn fantastic!! They have this huge tank; one side is a reef with all the reef fish, and the other side has a replica of the SS Yongala wreck, with sharks, rays and other predators swimming around.

I had a great time wandering around, especially as they had various talks throughout the day. I really enjoyed a talk given by a diver in one of the tanks; she was pointing out all the creatures and explaining thier habits to us. She also managed to coax the nocturnal grey nurse shark into activity so that she swam right past the glass and we could get a good look at her.

The aquarium also had a turtle hospital joined on to it, and twice a day they allow visitors into it. It was nice to see a few of the turtles they had nursed back to health, and we were told that four of them were going to be released back into the wild on Thursday. I made a mental note to be on the strand at that time so I could watch it.

After the aquarium , I went to the museum, and although it was a nice place it wasn't anywhere near as good as the aquarium (in my opinion). But they did have an interesting exibit about the HMS Pandora, a ship wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef after travelling to the other side of the world to apprehend the mutineers from the infamous HMS Bounty.
I did however meet an eldery male volunteer at the museum, who seemed very nice. But as we kept talking he offered to take me sightseeing, which I thought was very kind until he said ' And I don't expect anything in return' in a really unsettling voice.....
By then I'd already given him my number, but I thought, 'No worries, I can just tell him I'm busy if he does ring me'.
So I left the museum and went to the shops in town, as I needed to buy some new swimmers for my dive the next day, having lost my previous ones somewhere between the boat that took me to the Great Barrier Reef and my hostel in Cairns...

I had to get up really, really, really early the next day, as I needed to be at the jetty at 6.30am to get on the dive boat to take me to the Yongala Wreck. The SS Yongala sank in 1911, in a cyclone, killing all 122 people onboard. Because the Yongala didn't have a radio, no one knew what had happened to it, and the wreck remained undiscovered for 50 years. By the time it was found, the years had turned it into an articifical reef, with hundreds of fish and other marine wildlife calling it home.

On they way to the wreck we were lucky enough to spot some whales happily swimming together, enjoying the nice weather. It took us over 3 hours to get to the wreck as it is in the middle of nowhere (hence why I'd had to get up so early). When we arrived at the wreck, it felt like there was quite a bit of swell, as the boat was really bobbing up and down. By this point I was nervous, as I'd never been on a wreck, or done this deep before, but I was excited too, as they'd told us we were highly likely to see so many amazing creatures!

Feeling a little sick, I kitted up and got ready to take my big step out into the water. Once I was in the water, there was no time to panic or think too much about it as we were descending under the water straight away. As soo as we started to go down, the wreck emerged!! And all around it were hundred of giant trevellies (these huge silver fish).
When we had descended to just above the wreck, I'd seen so many different types of fish that I didn't know qhere to look. It was mind blowing!

I saw a lionfish, a giant moray eel, a huge queensland grouper, and a green turtle, not to mention all the other things I saw but just didn't know the name of. There fish were all back-dropped by the wreck, completely fantastic in it's own right!
Looking in the wreck (but not going inside as that is forbidden) we could see the old toilets, the engine room, and there were even old porthole windows to peer in through.

On our second dive, we swam a little way away from the wreck, as we were searching for bull sharks, and sure enough, we saw one! We followed him for a bit, much to his distress, so he tried to get away from us by disappearing into the murk. He obviously didn't like that we outnumbered him.
After a while we swam back to the wreck, where I saw reef bannerfish, olive sea snakes, a white spotted eagle ray and lots of types of wrasse. So the second dive was just as good as the first; we'd been out of the water for lunch so by the time we got back in the sea for the second dive, there were completely different fish everywhere.
I was SHATTERED that evening, but what a day!

I'd got a concerning voicemail message from the old man I'd met at the museum that evening, saying that he was going to come pick me up at 8.30-9ish the next day, even though I hadn't agreed to go anywhere with him. What was even more concerning was that he'd called me from a payphone so I couldn't ring him back and say I wasn't free.
So, to make myself feel secure, I got up early and checked out of my hostel early. I didn't want to have a confrontation, as knowing me, I'd get pursuaded into going with him, and I didn't want that as I had a bad feeling about the whole thing.

Therefore, I checked out and went for a walk along the strand. I knew that some rescued turtles were being released a little bit later, so I sat in the sun and scanned the area for likely places for the turtle release. I had to keep an eye out for the camera people, as I wasn't entirely sure where they'd be releasing the turtles, but thankfully I spotted them, and followed them to the site. I found myself a good spot, and waited for the turtles to arrive. It was so nice to see four turtles released back into their home waters. It was all over quickly as the aquarium people didn't want to make the turtles stressed, but it was well worth hunting out and waiting for.

I then hopped on a ferry to Magnetic Island. It was a bit of a mission getting all my stuff to the hostel, especially trying to get everything down the narrow isle on the bus, but I managed it and it was worth it as I was staying in such a beautiful place. They had all these bungalows (but not at all like the ones in the UK) with ensuites, a nice pool surrounded by hammocks, and a really chilled bar/restaurant area.

After putting my stuff in my room and making my bed, I went and lay in one of the hammocks, intending to read for a bit....next thing I knew, I'd been asleep for 3 hours!
Feeling a bit guilty about doing nothing, I walked over to the beach to check it out and watch the sunset. On the way back to my hotel, I met a friendly Scottish girl called Jo, and we found we had loads in common. It also turned out we were in the same bungalow at the same hostel!

We had dinner together, and made plans to go looking for wild koalas the next day. She had been told that the Fort walk was the best walk for seeing koalas, so we agreed to meet after breakfast in the restaurant area and head off to try and spot some.

I was up at a reasonable time to get ready in time for the special champagne breakfast I'd booked on to. On walking out of my bungalow, who should be sat there on the banister of the stairs up to my bungalow, but a very cheeky kookaburra. He was very vain thing, and happily sat there posing for my pictures.
After I'd indulged him for long enough, I trotted off for breakfast. The Champagne breakfast was held in the koala sanctuary next to Bungalow Bay (the hostel I was staying at), and true to the name, we were presented with champagne as soon as we arrived.

We were then taken to toast some bread over a fire, a novel experience, but one I don't feel the need to repeat as it turns out I am rubbish at it and just ended up with a black mess.
The breakfast was buffet style and there was so much to choose from. There was the usual suspects of sausages, bacon, jam, fresh fruit and yogurt, but there was also some slighlt more special choices. Such as real honey, still on the comb, and lamb chops covered in bush spices and grilled. It was all delicious.
I was sitting with a nice couple, whose son won 'the best job in the world' competition that ran in the UK a number of years back. They were telling me how they were doing a tour of the queensland coast with him, and that they were filming it and all writing blogs, to promote tourism in the area. It sounded like a pretty fantastic job to me and I was pretty jealous. As we were sitting there chatting and eating, we had a snake and a crocodile brought round to us, so we could touch them and be told about them. Once we'd finished eating we walked over to have a look at the koalas in the sanctuary.

I then headed back to Bungalow Bay (just next door) as I needed to meet up with Jo. Once we were both sorted, we walked up the road to the start of the Fort walk where we hoped we'd come across at least one wild koala!
The Fort walk is named after the lookout stations put in the area, so the Australians could look out for an attack by the Japanese in the second world war. There were no hostile shots fired in the second world war from the Fort, only a shot of mild surprise when an American warship turned up unannounced.

It wasn't a very long walk, but Jo and I spent probably twice the recommended time walking it, as we were looking in just about every tree we could see. And success! We saw two of them! One adult, and one smaller fluffier one that we thought must be an adolescent. We were pretty pleased with ourselves, especially as a mean Australian lady had told us point blank we had no chance of seeing any!

On the way back to our accommodation from the Fort walk, we stumbled across an Echidna!!!! It was fantastic!!! We couldn't believe our eyes as we'd not been expecting to see one.
It was so cute. Very like hedgehogs but with longer spines and a very long, snuffly nose. The echidna didn't much like us taking pictures of it, so it ran over to a rock and attempted to go under it, only to discover it was too big. Still, it stayed there with it's face hidden, blatantly saying 'if I can't see you, you can't see me'. And it was well protected as it's vulnerable face was covered by the rock, so if we were predators trying to eat it, all we would be able to reach was it's long, pointy needles. We decided not to bother it anymore and left it with it's rock.

We went back to the hostel to grab my wallaby food (given to me for free because I'd paid for a special Magnetic Island package), so we could go feed the wild rock wallabies. We hoped on the bus over to Arcadia, and trotted on down the road the bus driver pointed out to us. It became obvious why they were called rock wallabies when we saw them, as they were living underneath/behind these huge bolders.
Some of the wallabies were braver than others but we tried to be fair, giving some of the wallaby pellets to all the wallabies we saw. We were even lucky enough to see a wallaby with it's joey peeking out of it's pouch.

Then it was time for me to say goodbye to Jo, as she was heading back to Townsville. We promised to try and meet up again somewhere else down the coast, and then I had to rush back to the hostel, because at 4.30pm every day, they feed the local rainbow lorikeets. I arrived just in time to grab some food and feed them. Before I knew it I had 5-6 birds on one arm.....I also had some not so nice presents on my top! So a change of t-shirt was in order.

The rest of the afternoon was spent whiling away the time by reading in a hammock by the pool, and then having dinner at the hostel with a couple of girls from my bungalow. I was sad, as my time on Magnetic Island was just about up, and I would be heading back to Townsville the next day to catch a bus down the coast to Airlie Beach. But Airlie Beach is home to the Whitsundays, so I was really looking forward to that!

And that is it for this blog. Let me know what you thing :D

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Photos

On the Fort Walk
WIld Koala

Rainbow Lorikeets
One of them was standing on my camera!! That worried me a little bit...

Comments

[Caroline]

Another great blog Abs
Another great blog Abs, love the pictures, keep it up.

[catia]

Octupus
he looks yummy!