Magnetic Island

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MAGNETIC ISLAND

Well a couple of hours on the greyhound and we are dropped off at the ferry terminal in Townsville. As we are waiting for our ferry we bump into the two Irish Girls & the coffin and swap stories. This is the last time we will bump into them as they are on their way to Cairns and leaving for home before we get there. We also see a couple of the people who were on the Avatar with us. Talking of Avatar, guess what we got to watch, again, on the way here?

A 20 minute journey over the water and we were on what the locals lovingly refer to as “Maggie”. We jumped on the local bus, with most of the boat and a heap of school kids for a tour of the island en route to our hostel.

We are staying at the YHA on a “Koala express” how cool! The YHA is attached to a wildlife sanctuary, so we have included in our little package a ticket to the wildlife park and a ticket to cuddle a Koala whilst having our photo taken. When we check in, we get allocated a cute little bungalow on stilts with a bit of decking out front, a fridge, super ice cold air con and a futon style bed!


We were pre-warned that the food hear is really expensive as it is an island, so we came prepared. We lugged over loads of cans of meat in tins and noodles, so we have some kind of beef in gravy over noodles for supper, then head down to the bar for a beer to wash it down. Tonight we have Coconut bowling, Charlotte excitedly signs us up as it is free and we have the chance to win beer!

Well, what a funny old game! We are indeed throwing a coconut at a load of skittles. If you get a strike you get a free jug of beer, if you get the centre pin down you get a free pot of beer and the winner (most points) gets a 30 dollar bar tab! Woo hoo! About 20 of us gave it a go and as there were a couple of Ozzies there it turned into “The Ashes” All over again, and Yes England whooped their arses! Charlotte won a pot and go through to the finals with Sam (we spent the night with at Rockhampton YHA) and another chap. Sam won, as Charlotte totally missed all of the pin’s! It was all that pressure!

We got up the next day and decided to check out the beach. After a long hot walk down a tarmac road (only about 5 mins, but the humidity & heat, wow), we reached the beach and see the stinger enclosure! Yeah. There is lots of work going on as the Cyclone swept through here when they were having King tides (you will know about these in Looe & Polperro, Dad). The tractors were busy moving all of the sand back down onto the beach. But the stinger net looked open, so we stripped off and dived in!.

It was really weird as their was a layer of warm water on top of cooler water, strange! We swam around for a bit before spotting a familiar face! So we swim a little closer to the two girls cavorting in the water. As we get a little closer, Charlotte hollers “Woo Wee Hannah?” and promptly gets ignored! It can’t be her! But we swim a little closer and she recognises us! Well I suppose she was trying to get away from the strange drunk Ozzy who jumped into the sea between us and was trying to make conversation with the sexy girls in the water! As we catch up with what she has been up to since Gagaju she introduces her friend Natalie who has joined her for a couple of weeks. Then along comes Yanka from Bundaburg, so it is a great reunion for us all.

Hannah and Natalie have decided to rent one of the Moke cars tomorrow and tour the island. We offered to split the cost with them and hop in! Phone numbers were exchanged and a plan was made. We would meet them for lunch as we had to do the Koala experience in the morning, which would give hem some time to explore their side of the island.

Hannah and Natalie went off to catch the bus back to their hostel at Base (near the ferry terminal) and we sat down and relaxed with Yanka before heading off to look around the local food store. We are glad we brought our food with us as it was about three times the price here! We bumped into Hannah again as they had got the bus times wrong and had another hour to kill, so were looking around the shops!

We headed back to the hostel after getting a couple of ice lolly’s and went for another swim in our tropical pool with Yanka who was saying there also. We stayed in their for ages as it kept us cool! We had a happy hour drink before supper of beef chilli and noodles and then settled down to watch another Austin Powers movie in the comfort of our cold bungalow.

Up at the crack of nine and down to reception ready for the wildlife park, we were meet by Ron the guide for the day and advised to take a couple of litres of water as it gets hot out there! We then head on through the locked gates into a wildlife wonder park. We start off with a black Macau which Charlotte happily holds first and feeds sunflower seeds from her mouth. Liam has a go as we get the cameras going to capture the experience.

Next up are the Crocodiles, Ron tells us all about each of the animals as we are introduced and get to hold them all. Wow, holding a baby croc! Over to the Koala, apparently Queensland is one of the few places that you can still hold them, but you have to pay for the privilege. At least we got a photo thrown in. We also held a dragon lizard, who took a real liking to Liam! Then on to the Snake. Well Liam went first and as he was so brave, Charlotte gave it a go too! Well she looked so comfortable with it, we think she turned into a snake charmer!

Ron tried to get us with a spider in a box trick (it was a plastic one!) before taking us out for a walk along the road to find a wild Koala. He could not find it where it normally slept, but one of the group found him hiding in a different tree. We headed back to the reception and meet up with Natalie and Hannah. We went for a drive down to Arcadia and out the other side looking for water falls and Wallaby rocks. We found Wallaby rocks and Hannah had had the insight to buy some Wallaby pellets so we could feed them.

They were so cute and one of them had Joey’s in the pouch who poked his little head out to eat as mummy was bending down to eat. The all appeared out of the rock where they had been resting from the midday sun! Liam got one cheeky one eating out of his hand and as he did not get it chewed off, we all had a go.

Whizzing around in the topless car was great fun and although it looked quite small at first it happily fitted both Charlotte and Liam in he rear seats, but it was fun watching us try to get in and out! We stopped off at Magnums for a pizza lunch before heading out to the Arcadia waterfalls. Up a back street and a short hill climb to three shady pools under the waterfalls.

We found a load of the staff from our hostel relaxing up there. And a few brave souls jumping off of a tree swing into the water. We relaxed in here for a bit then headed off to continue our tour. We went out to Picnic bay, just past the girls hostel and walked along the pier before chatting to some locals under the strangest trees that have roots penetrating the ground which come down from the branch’s. We also looked up and saw what Charlotte named “Toppling rock” above a lovely glass house overlooking the sea (Charlotte wants to live there!). The locals sent them up to another waterfall, but on our way we discovered that it was an unsealed road and we could not take rental cars up there.

The girls dropped us back to the hostel after we discovered that it only took about 9 minutes to travel the whole island. It is tiny! We got back and dived straight into the pool again for a nice long soak! On our way back to the room we walked into the Lorikeet feeding time. Oh my God! We were covered, just see some of the photo’s attached. What fun! We did end up with lots of scratches on our arms from there claws though!

Up early and again a whole day of travelling, first the bus to the ferry, then the ferry to the bus! On arriving on our Greyhound the strange driver, a big fat, bald Scot called Edwin informed us that he was the regional manager and we were very lucky to have him as he was the best driver in the world! At least he blows his own trumpet! We had him because the bus we should have been on was over 5 hours late as the Bruce Highway had been closed because of a hit & run. He then went on to tell us a load of “Cock & Bull” about how we have to wear seat belts or when he puts in his blue fob in he can tell, how if we open a can of alcohol on the bus a bit of paper above him goes purple and if we smoke in the loo another bit goes yellow! He has however been sent form the Greyhound office in America a copy of Avatar! (This is so funny as it is an Xvid with no titles, so obviously downloaded illegally from the web, with Russia subtitles!). Guess what we get to watch for the third time, all the way to Mission Beach!

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