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July 20 – 24th. Magnetic Island
- Sore feet, motionless grey bundles and no weeding in sight
A kind of boring but necessary logistical opening paragraph: The original plan, retrieved from my foggy memory, arrive on Magnetic Island, a twenty minute ferry journey from Townsville, on Wednesday, spend two nights relaxing in hostel-land before three nights (Fri, Sat, Sun) WWOOFing on the island and then down to another host in the Mackay area on Monday. The previous blog should have clued you in that we’d be arriving a day earlier...then there were the emails. Sorry, but no WWOOFing on the island anymore (the reason was 100% fair enough but I won’t go into it on here), no great problem, there’s still Monday. Sorry, can’t take you until a week later now. That would have been all well and good a few months back but at this late stage of our journey cash is becoming a sparse commodity and we simply can’t afford to wait around a week and a half doing nothing...it’s really annoying to be forced into decisions by financial necessity, especially as the Monday host sounded ace, but I guess that’s the reality in the end. Thankfully another host we’d emailed about a stay later in the month responding saying a couple of weeks earlier would be better for them and so, a few messages back and forth later, we were arranged to arrive there on Tuesday. We sorted out something (intrigue!) to do for a few days on route and booked an extra night on the island, making four in total.
Thew, thrilling reading eh? The sorting out of the above, at such short notice, was stressful (especially as it happened in a number of waves that made it feel that each night something else went wrong!) but we got there in the end and still managed to fit in a lot of fun, memorable, experiences around such panic. I guess that’s the sort of thing you’re more interested in hearing...don’t say I never indulge you...
The ferry dropped us off in Nelly Bay and it was a brief bus ride to our hostel in Picnic Bay, called Travellers Retreat. Picnic Bay was the original site of the ferry terminal and it seemed to me the area has steadily declined since its relocation a decade ago. Places have begun to vanish and nobody has stepped in to fill the gaps, leaving behind boarded up shops and a lack of some basic amenities such as local shops, food needing to be brought in bulk elsewhere on the island. Saying all this, the absence of people, specifically the more party-oriented crowd, leant the area a calm, near serene, aura. Beaches were far from rammed anywhere we went across the island but the solitude was most pronounced not two minutes from our dorm. The hostel itself was decent if a tad run down owing to the severe downturn in business, there were never more than five guests during our entire stay and on one day we were the sole business...which did benefit us somewhat as it meant we didn’t have to share our room with anyone! It was a bit odd to see what was obviously once such a happening place in such reduced circumstances but the quiet suited our mood fairly well.
The first day we didn’t venture beyond Picnic Bay after we had arrived, spending what was left of the afternoon and the evening on the beach and up the short pier, walking back down which we unexpectedly saw both a turtle and a shoal of fish in the crystal clear water not five metres from the sand...pretty ace! Once darkness had fallen and we had eased out stomachs demands we headed out again to wander some more, this time spotting rock wallabies scurrying about in the rocky area just beyond the pier...again, pretty ace!
Our second day, our first full one, saw us catch a bus (with a spinal tap-esque driver and rather welcome classic rock radio station on full blast) up to Arcadia...well almost to Arcadia...we may have accidentally jumped off prematurely...it didn’t take us that long to walk the rest and in doing so allowed us to see a stretch of the island we wouldn’t have otherwise...so perhaps we should get off at the wrong place more often! After a photo each with the sign (a Glastonbury reference, don’t worry about it) we went...wait for it...to the beach! And ate ice-cream. Such stresses behind us we headed back the way we’d come, stopping momentarily in Nelly Bay to stock up on food so as to improve on my pasta mit nothing culinary masterpiece of the night beforehand.
Back in Picnic Bay we came over all energetic and decided to attempt the walking track up to Hawkins Point, which would transpire to be a giant rock we could see far up into the skyline from the beach. We almost fell at the first hurdle when we were unable to find the start of the trail but, several fruitless walks and furrowed brows later, we were ready to begin. It was only a small track, taking twenty to thirty minutes to reach the summit, yet I still found it challenging because it was more or less constantly uphill, spiralling around and around to the top...needless to say it was much easier coming down! (There’s also an alternative hypothesis that I’m not too fit...but such slander is beneath you so banish the thought!) The view from the top was amazing, you could see all along and beyond the bay below as well as all the way up to Nelly Bay in the distance and off into the national park, that takes up a fair chunk of the island, beyond.
Clearly inspired by such exertion our third day would include even more walking. Maybe, upon waking up and discovering our legs still worked, we wanted to see just how far we could push them! The island was certainly a good place for such trials, seeing how the hilly landscape made for a rapid and drastic (AKA steep!) up-down-up-down scene. It would appear that we were destined to spend more time tackling the ‘up’ option across the day...though perhaps this was just because it took us longer! Anyway, we knew none of this (though perhaps we could have guessed looking across the island from Hawkins point) as we caught the bus up to the north side of the island and stood studying a giant trail map...being puzzled for several minutes before spotting big arrows at the bottom of the sign and sheepishly going on our way!
We initially aimed for Arthur Bay but cluelessly strolled right pass the turnoff, eventually finding ourselves in a lookout point high above the far end of the bay in question. The view was great and all...just it did beg the question how exactly we got onto the shores we stood admiring!
Reasoning we’d have to come back the way we’d came later anyway we pushed on ahead to Florence Bay, that a questioned person walking the opposite way assured us was just around the corner. Before that we made a brief tangent up a splinter track taking us over to a lookout at the intersection between Arthur and Florence Bays. It had a high, downwards gazing view (it required climbing a ladder at the end) and, again, the view was great. I’m going to wear out eloquent comments (such as the highly intellectual ‘great’) describing views but, trust me; though the language may fail me they were honestly all very...very...well, very great! At the base of the lookout platform there were the remains of a searchlight from the islands usage during the war, there’d be more of this sort of thing later on so I’ll tantalise you with this teaser and leave the details till then...should give me enough time to fire up Google...
Florence Bay itself was ace, white sand sweeping from side to die and much further out than I’m used to seeing. We parked ourselves down, had lunch (spreadable cheese in bread...we could have been munching down on soil I suppose) and I made the manly decision to head into the sea. Despite the hot day it was cold at first but OK when I decided that edging back from each oncoming wave amid shivers wasn’t the look I was really going for and jumped in. I did a bit of snorkelling but didn’t see anything besides the sandy depths, which you could actually see just as well from above owing to the water being so clear. Floating on my back, gazing up at the cloudless sky whilst the sun bore down on me on an Australian island...in some ways I’d rather have been weeding.
Second time around we proved less blind and, at the top of some puffy hills and through thick mangroves, found out way to Arthur Bay. It was pleasant...so pleasant as a matter of fact that I surrender to sleep for a half hour on its secluded shores.
Forced back to, admittedly sunny, reality by Liz we then headed right back to where we’d started the day and this time went left at the sign, to the Forts walk. This is the recommended trail for spotting koalas but after the Mission Beach Cassowary hunt (which I don’t think I actually recorded on here, basically we had a brief search for Cassowaries and found their fresh poo...not really what we wanted and a touch mocking!) I went in with the attitude that it didn’t really matter if we didn’t see anything. We saw one after, oh, four, maybe five minutes. And another five before we’d finished. They were really cute and it was great to see them in a natural environment, sleeping predominantly but they are koalas so that is pretty much what they do. One woke up whilst we were looking (yes, and taking pictures) at it, momentarily looked at us with morning eyes, half reached one hand towards a leaf, thought better of it and slowly allowed his eyes to fall shut again over about thirty seconds. As I said, very cute.
The cuteness award has to go to one of the two koalas we spotted together, a parent with its baby. The baby slept hugging its parent for support whilst it ate. It looked right at us with its tiny, fluffy face, eliciting high pitched squeals and shuffling feet from Liz and two other women watching and a masculine thin smile and nod from me. Honest. I can’t really do justice to the cuteness (hmm, this blog is apology heavy isn’t it!)...I guess you’ll just have to wait for the photos!
At the top of the trail was the Forts complex, or what’s left of them. Much of what was once here has been demolished or has simply fallen down, many forks in the path lead just to vague impressions on the earth, subtle hints at what once was. There were still pair of large spherical structures where searchlights once stood and the command post itself was intact. We climbed to the top of this to clock up one more great view, a 360 degree look down at some places we’d been today, some across the previous days and still more we’d never make it to, the sun dipping behind some mountains, light streaming across a far off bay.
The fourth day was decidedly less hectic...still, I think we needed some time to recover from all that walking...plus we really weren’t paying enough attention to those beaches...
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