Magnetic Island - Magnet For Wildlife and Nature

Next stop for me after Airlie Beach was Magnetic Island. After a four-hour bus ride, I arrived in Townsville and immediately boarded the ferry that would take me to the island. All of this under bright sunshine. When I arrived at Magnetic Island, the bus took me a few more kilometers to finally check in at the hostel. It was still light outside, but the sun was about to set. I went shopping along the coast, then had dinner. After that, I picked up my free "Welcome Drink" and ran into Lisa again, who had arrived there a day before me. I went to bed relatively early that evening because I had something very strenuous planned for the next day 😆

My plan was to rent a bicycle and explore Magnetic Island 🏍 So after breakfast, I went to the bike rental and I was mobile for the next 24 hours. First, I went to Arcadia Bay, where there are wild rock wallabies and a beautiful view. The wallabies were very tame and you could easily feed them. I found some carrots on the ground and held them out to some of the animals. It was so great to watch them eat from the palm of my hand 😍 By the way, rock wallabies are really small animals. They are maybe a little bigger than rabbits - they eat the same thing 😉 - but they are also extremely agile and fast. From there, I went to the other side of the island for the first time to Horseshoe Bay. There is a relatively large beach and of course the ocean. In between, there is a lot of forest. And mountains. Many mountains. I had to pedal hard to get there 😑🏔 To make matters worse, the chain jumped off twice, so I had to manually get it back running 😒 From there, I went to the harbor area first, then for a little lunch break at the hostel, then for a short walk in the forest, and finally to West Point, where there is not much except for a huge beach. The way there led me over an unpaved and bumpy gravel road, which was not very pleasant. But no matter, the journey is the destination 😉 I went back the same way and to the other side again. At that time, I had been on the road for a long time and my strength was fading, so I had to push the bike for part of the way. Shortly after reaching the highest point, I decided to take a short hike on a popular trail, which offers two beautiful viewpoints and some ruins of facilities like kitchens or toilets. I also saw wild koalas for the first time, who were indulging in their favorite activity in a eucalyptus tree - sleeping 😴😂 Great, because I could photograph them undisturbed 👌🐨 I also saw a whole flock of parrots with red tail feathers. After the short walk, I went all the way to the big beach, where I arrived just in time to see the sun disappear behind the mountains 🌄 Due to the view that it would soon get dark, I started my way back to the hostel early, which was not easy with the mountains. It was already dark by the time I reached the hostel. I locked the bike at a fence, used the remaining minutes of WiFi until 7:00 PM, and then completely exhausted, took a shower. After dinner, I joined Lisa and a Swedish friend of hers. In the "common room", there was a food competition going on, where the participants had to eat a small bucket of extremely spicy chicken wings in four minutes and were not allowed to drink or wipe their mouths during that time. 😆 Actually, two out of the four managed to finish everything in time. As soon as the time was up, they either drank a jug of water or poured it directly on their heads. I don't even want to know how spicy that meat was 😅 And that's coming from a big fan of spicy food. To my horror, I then shortly after realized that my debit card was suddenly not in my money belt anymore. This nightmare scenario had spared me for the first 7.5 months, but now it had come. It was neither in my room, nor had it been handed in at the bar. So I had to have it cancelled 😨 Luckily, I got it back the next morning because someone had handed it in at the reception 🍀🍀🍀 It must have simply fallen out when I was looking for another card.

Other than that, I didn't really do anything noteworthy until the check-out, except of course returning the bike. Afterwards, I spent my time on the hostel terrace until my bus arrived to take me to the ferry. Lisa was on the same boat and then on the same Premier bus. So I had a very good means of entertainment sitting next to me the whole time 😊👍 But then I got off the boat and out of the bus alone in Mission Beach. Most people skip this stop and go straight to Cairns, but it is part of the 33-day tour with Peterpans. In the beginning, I was a bit skeptical whether this place was really worth seeing (thinking: "The others must have a reason to skip this"), but my opinion was completely different when I left the place. Mission Beach was actually one of my most beautiful experiences in Australia and I would have loved to stay longer 😍 You will find out how I came to this opinion in the next report.

See you then! 👋

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