Australia - Magnetic Island

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We had a mad rush in Qantas changing our flights for Ayers Rock before getting the greyhound bus at lunchtime for our 6 hour journey to Townsville. We jumped straight onto the ferry over to Magnetic Island which was named by Captain Cook because he thought his ship's compass went funny when he sailed by in 1770. We made our way to X Base hostel which Nicola at Castaways had recommended. We arrived at 8pm and the only acommodation they had left were like tippees. They were small permanent tents with 2 camp beds in. We thought they were quite cute, managed to squeeze a third bed in and were looking forward to testing them out until i spotted what i thought was a cat in the bushes outside but it turned out to be a possum - eeeekkkkkk!! Apparently someone woke up with a possum on his chest as they can easily get into the tents which was a little disturbing to know! X Base was lovely, right on the beach with beautiful views, it was so dark when we arrived though i couldn't wait to see it in the day.

We only had 1 day in Magnetic Island, We got up early to make the most of it and went wandering off around the island to find the car hire place. We walked towards Picnic Bay whcih was lovely and old fashioned, they had old style open post boxes in their front gardens and probably left their doors unlocked at night! There are only 2,500 people on the whole island and most of them are retired! We stopped to ask an elderly couple in their car if we were going in the right direction which we weren't and so they offered to give us a lift back to Nelly Bay to where we needed to go (had this been a younger couple and somewhere different we probably wouldn't have just willingly jumped in their car!) but they were such a lovely old couple bless them, so we got our free ride and hired a fab pink and white topless Barbie to cruise around the island in - which didn't take long as half of the island is National Park and dominated by Mount Cook and it only took 10 minutes to get from one side to the other!

We stopped for lunch at Picnic Bay then wandered around Arcadia and Alma Bay before heading up the top of the island to Horseshoe Bay which was lovely so we stopped for a sunbathe and an ice cream! Later in the afternoon we went to Geoffrey Bay and stopped at the rock wallaby point and saw a few there then we moved on to Radical Bay where we did Fort Walk which is a good place to spot koalas later in the afternoon. There was a sign at the beginning of the walk saying that as well as koalas there were death adders living there which are venemous and lurk in the sand and under the leaves and after the explanaition about them the sign said "Enjoy your walk"! I think we spent the first part of the walk on death adder watch rather than koala watch! All the local wildlife came out for us on our trip, we found a huge koala hanging aboout in the eucalyptus trees and a couple called us over as they'd found an Echidna which looks a bit like a hedgehog but is poisonous and then we spotted a kookaburra a bit further on - we just needed a kangaroo to hop by to complete the picture! Magnetic Island was pretty small but we made the most of our time there and didn't need longer than a day. We had another alcohol free evening and an early night in our tent!

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Comments

[Yee]

Hey Suzanne
Am enjoying your blogs very much. You and the othes are obviously having a great time. Have you met up with them yet at Frasers Island? What happend to your cards? Did you lose those? Missing you and the others very much but very pleased that you are all having such a good time (so much so that you are staying away longer)! Keep up the blogs so that we know how you get on. Lisa may have told you I'm moving bays and this is now happening over the weekend. I will have a new seat on Tuesday (after the Bank Holiday) - will be so happy. Anyway, take care and continue to have fun. Lots of love, Wongy