Day 28 - Arriving on Magnetic Island

As planned we were up early and checked out to wait for the Oz Ex bus due north. When the bus arrived we jumped on to find we were the only two passengers and made the most of this by spreading our stuff onto the empty seats and taking two seats each.

We went passed Bowen (the place where they’d filmed Australia the movie due to its dated look. All the locals got to be extra in the film and the town has even created a huge BOWENVILLE sign on their water tower.) – We didn’t stop here though as it’s a place where people get off to do work and that ain’t our style on this trip!

Oh, we’d also driven past the “Big Mango” which is also what Bowen’s famous for (its mangoes.)

When we got to Townsville, we got our return tickets for the ferry across to Magnetic Island (a suburb of Townsville) and got on board for the windiest ferry crossing ever. We had nice views of the Island and Townsville when crossing, as well as being able to see lots of jellyfish bobbing in the waters, hmph!

After the ferry we caught the bus to the other side of the island and our hostel the YHA. We checked in and decided to head to the beach for some tanning… this was short lived as it was about 35 degrees and the water was 30 degrees so we couldn’t last very long down there. We called it quits and went and had an ice-cream each before going back to the hostel.

This is when Danny had one of his, ever more frequent, afternoon power naps and Corrie went for a shower… this time Danny left the door unlocked!

We spent some time looking for things to do here, though the 2.8km walk through the forest did seem appealing to us at this time. We may tackle it tomorrow as it is meant to be a nice walk with a chance to see koalas in the wild.

After that we went for tea (a pizza each and we stretched the budget to get some more coke too – the dentists will not be happy with us when we return) and then back to the room for sleep.

Just before sleep, however, we noticed that the site had suddenly got a lot busier; the newcomers being loads and loads of wallabies and possums. We spent a while trying to get some pics but none really came out in the darkness even with flash. Corrie might give it a go with her camera tomorrow night though so we’ll see.  They were all out in search of food and it was nice to sit and watch them a while before bed.