Weds 3rd Aug – An early start to catch my OzExperience bus to Magnetic Island. The driver thought it would be fun to do a TV soundtrack trivia quiz but I wasn’t paying attention and was just listening to my own music. During the silence between songs I overheard the “Seinfeld” soundtrack on the loudspeaker, I took my earphones off and yelled “Seinfeld” to which everyone on the bus stared at me. They played a few more songs which no one knew the answers to but I did, so I kept yelling them out. Some guy behind me said I watch too much TV, and I just couldn’t be bothered and put my own music back on. Randomly in between my own songs I’d hear something familiar on the loudspeaker and if no one else answered straight away, I’d wait a few seconds and put them out of their misery. This went on for about 15 minutes, until eventually the driver came up to me, distracted me from staring out of the window and told me I’d won. I said thanks and turned back to the window and he said the prize was a free party bus tour in Cairns valued at $35! Everyone on the bus was looking at me in shock as I wasn’t even properly playing, but I guess I have a good memory when it comes to TV and film soundtracks! The bus ride was 4 hours to Townsville where we could catch a ferry to Magnetic Island or Maggie as it’s affectionately known. The ferry crossing took 20 minutes, and then there was a 10 minute bus ride to the hostel. Whilst on the bus I was amazed at how green and tropical the surroundings looked. When I checked in to the hostel (Base Magnetic Island), this is the view from the check-in desk:
I did some food shopping then waited for Rox and Mel, as they were getting the greyhound from Airlie Beach. They checked into my room (which is basically a wooden cabin – very island-y!) and we went for a nice meal and caught up on what we’d been doing the last 12 hours! I bumped into a few people I’d met in Airlie Beach, and a guy called Jim who was on the Boomerang with me and my roommate when we were in Airlie Beach.
Thurs 4th Aug – After a lazy lie in, we walked to the shops for food and then did a short walk to Hawking’s point. There were spectacular views from up here of Nelly Bay which is where we were staying. There is one bus and one main road which linked Nelly Bay to Arcadia, Horseshoe Bay and Picnic Bay which are the main areas of the island. As everything on the island was so spread out it was easier to stay in the hostel at night. They hold a pub quiz on Thursdays and it was the best pub quiz I’ve been to. It was interactive, involved competitions between teams within the quiz, and had clips from films and puzzles shown on the big screen. In one of the rounds, they asked everyone whether a tin of oysters in oil would sink or swim in a pitcher of water. At the end of the round when they were going through the questions, they brought out the oysters and poured them into the water. They sank to everyone’s surprise, and the quizmaster then offered 2 bonus points to anyone who could drink the oily oysters in water. Someone actually did it. Gross. Our team didn’t win the top prize but we won a prize for the best team name and a free topless car rental! These cars are all over Maggie:
There were 8 of us in the team so we were quite excited about sharing the car rental and we were told the rental was only for the evening after 5pm but it would still be fun so we were happy.
Fri 5th Aug – Today was primarily a beach day. We sunbathed in front of our hostel in Nelly Bay for a while, then took the bus to Horseshoe Bay and sunbathed there too. In the afternoon we decided to walk from Horseshoe Bay back to our hostel which took 4 hours.
The paths took us through the forest and when we got to Arcadia, we approached a farmer for directions to the wallaby feeding area. He was pleasant and took chopped up 2 red peppers for us to take to the wallabies to feed them. A few minutes later we got to the hanging rocks, expecting not to see anything but there were so many wallabies about! They looked really wild and rough, like they had been in a lot of fights, and when we held out our hands with food, they went crazy and would jump all over each other to get to the food. It was nice to see them in the wild as opposed to a zoo though so we spent a bit of time there watching and feeding them before walking back to our hostel. We got back at 5.30pm and saw 2 girls from our quiz team who said we had to book the car before 3pm to get it after 5pm, so we’d have to wait until tomorrow. The 2 girls said they and one of the other girls was leaving in the morning so the car would have to be shared between me, Mel, Rox and the 2 boys from our quiz team. The only problem was that we didn’t actually know them, we only knew the girls, and they’d given the boys the voucher to look after so me, Mel and Rox decided to arrange a time to meet them to share the car. We agreed to meet at the hostel at 5pm the next day.
Sat 6th Aug – Today we sat sunbathing on the beach (again!) and then took the bus to the Forts Walk. This was a walk through the woods and an old fort which was made during the Second World War to protect Townsville on the mainland. The walk was famous for spotting wild koalas so we were keen to do it. Half an hour into the walk Roxane pointed out a koala sitting on a eucalyptus tree! It was so cute, and didn’t seem to be bothered at all by our presence. We saw another one on the way back too. Our roommates had said they’d seen a mother koala with her joey that day but we didn’t see her. We got back to the hostel at 5.10pm and couldn’t see the boys from our quiz team. An hour later we found them in the hostel and they said they’d been for a drive and came back to shower and eat before driving to one of the lookout points. They said they would take us out with them later and wouldn’t give us the key!! We were really annoyed about this. Our roommate Rob thought they were really rude, and since he and his friends had hired a car themselves anyway, he said I could drive their car for a bit. This was really cool of them as I’d been missing driving and I was really looking forward to racing up and down the main road. So I drove them to the shops and back which took about 10 minutes. I didn’t want to drive any longer because it was dark so I couldn’t see any of the beautiful scenery anyway, but it was just so nice to drive a car again!
Sun 7th Aug – Today we relaxed on the beach all day and the girls made plans to leave the next morning as they had to go down to Fraser Island and Brisbane before they fly back home to Canada. We took a walk to Picnic Bay, (there wasn’t much there!) In the evening, we hung out with our roommates as it was their last night on Maggie too, and we’d had so much fun the last few days with them.
Mon 8th Aug – I had to wake up early for my first day of my scuba diving course, so I said a quick bye to the girls whilst they were half-asleep. The scuba school – Reef Safari – was based in the hostel opposite the kitchen so this is where I learnt to dive:
In the little hut by the pool was where me and the 2 other people on my course sat doing our theory work. I was tired from the night before so I kept falling asleep during the instructional videos! Halfway during the morning Mel and Rox came in to say a proper goodbye as they had checked out and were going to take the bus over to the ferry terminal. It was sad saying goodbye as I had known them for almost 2 months and we had experienced so much together. The next time I see them will be when I go to Canada or they come to the UK.
When they left I carried on with the course. We went into the pool and did some basic scuba skills exercises. Our instructor, Kane, said we were ready to go into the ocean on our first day so we did 2 dives in the afternoon. It was incredible! I couldn’t believe I was finally diving in the Great Barrier Reef, I enjoyed every minute of it! We saw lots of fish, coral, and a turtle! In the evening I had a lot of reading to do as we had to read 5 chapters from our scuba manual so I felt like I was back at Uni studying and doing homework.
During the day Kane kept taking the mick out of me for being English, when I tried to defend myself he said we were too busy setting our cities on fire. I was confused by this and asked what he meant by this and it was only then I found out about the riots going on back home. With hardly any access to the internet, no TV and as I never buy newspapers I had no idea what was going on.
Tue 9th Aug – Today we did 2 more pool dives and learnt more skills, followed by 2 more dives in the ocean. Although it was our second day we were told we could take the exam early as Kane said we were ready and it was a simple exam. He was right, it was simple and I passed.
Wed 10th Aug – We could 2 fun dives at the end of our course so I decided to do one of them today and another the following day. The other 2 people from my course were busy today so it was just me and an instructor. We saw 2 big angel fish and a stingray. Afterwards I walked to Arcadia to see the wallabies again. My friend told me tropical fish can be seen in the water next to the wallaby-feeding area but I didn’t see any. As I had a lot of time on my hands, I walked to Horseshoe Bay, then onto Radical Bay.
This involved walking across Horseshoe Bay beach, walking around some rocks via knee-deep water and then climbing up a steep forest. I caught the sunset at Radical Bay then started to quickly walk back through the forest to Horseshoe Bay where I could get the bus back. Unfortunately, because of the tide, the water which was knee deep when I had crossed it before was now going to be past my shoulders, and because I had my camera in my backpack I didn’t want to walk or swim through this. So the only option was to walk on top of some boulders, and eventually I got to a clearing in the forest. But it was dark, and I couldn’t see any path to get back to Horseshoe Bay. I took my shoes off and started to walk around the forest, (because it had turned into a swamp and water was ankle deep). I couldn’t get through all the masses of trees and resigned myself to the fact that I might have to sleep here! Luckily some French tourists turned up and they found a track back to Horseshoe Bay so that was a relief! I took a bus back to Nelly Bay as I was way too tired to walk back another 3 hours in the dark!
Thurs 11th Aug – I had a voucher for free snorkel gear hire, so after asking Reef Safari where the best place to snorkel was, I took the bus to the Forts Walk and from there I followed a dirt road to Florence Bay. I had to be back by midday for my last dive so I had to be really quick. II managed to walk all the way to Florence Bay, get 15 minutes of snorkeling in and hike back up the hill to catch the bus back. On the bus back my friend Tasha (who I’d left in Agnes Water) got on. It wasn’t a surprise as we’d arranged to meet in Magnetic Island, just a shame she missed Mel and Rox by a few days. My last dive was pretty cool, I felt really comfortable in the water and we were all messing around doing handstands and throwing sand in each other’s faces when we were at the bottom. I managed to get some good pictures of feeding fish under the water and I held a giant clam.
After the dive, me and Tasha walked to Arcadia and fed the wallabies again. There were so many more today than the last couple of times, and they were climbing all over Tasha to get to the food pellets she had in her hands!
In the evening it was quiz time again. I’d met a couple of guys, Tom and Jake, during my dive course so I asked them to join me and Tasha in the quiz. My new roommates Martha, Mona and Denise also joined our team along with another guy called Joe. I didn’t realise it then but I would be hanging out with these guys quite a bit in the week that followed. They will henceforth be known as the Maggie Island Crew. We did quite okay in the quiz, winning a $20 breakfast voucher, but that’s not so good split between 8 of us! I think Joe and Tom used it in the end.
Fri 12th Aug – Today I woke up early to catch the bus to the koala sanctuary. They had a 2 hour and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone unless you were keen to hold a koala because it was slow-moving and they didn’t have that many animals. I did get to hold a snake, a baby crocodile and some lizards. Afterwards I bumped into Tasha again in Horseshoe Bay, she was going for a long walk but I wanted to go back for a nap and prepare for the evening. Every month Base hostel hosts the Full Moon Down Under party, which is meant to be a replica of the Full Moon parties in Thailand, only in Australia. It was quite a big event with thousands of people and me and the Maggie Island crew spent the first part of the evening on the beach with others from the hostel. It was a really good night and went on till late.
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