Where the attraction is magnetic - Magnetic Island / 04. - 07.11.2018

After taking a 3-hour bus ride to Townsville on November 4th, we took the ferry to Magnetic Island - the crossing took only about 25 minutes. On the first day, we didn't do anything exciting, except admire our awesome hostel (except for the crappy Wi-Fi here) - our room was a small 8-bed hut with a sea view and the pool was pretty cool too. You could even camp here and the area was incredibly large.
Funny thing was that everyone we had seen on the ferry and bus after also came into our hut, 2 Swiss girls and 2 French guys - 2 English girls who are twins had checked in a day earlier.

The next day, we made egg toast for breakfast - toast soaked in egg cooked in a sandwich maker - and then met up with the two English guys Ollie and Harry, whom we had met at the beer night in Cairns in our hostel. They were just checking out but told us that their next destination was also Airlie Beach, and that we would probably see each other again because it seems like everyone is following each other here.
After that, we had plans to meet up with a friend of Linni's - Tim - who happened to be on Magnetic Island too, and wanted to explore the island with a day bus ticket. Unfortunately, he was staying at a hostel on the other end, so Linni and I went up to see him early in the morning and then planned to explore the various bays and hiking trails on the way down together.

Our first stop was Horseshoe Bay, where we went swimming in a small section of the beach because there was a net to keep out the dangerous jellyfish. From there, there was a rocky trail - which reminded me a lot of the trail in the Forêt de Bonifato in Corsica - to Radical Bay, which can only be reached by foot or by boat. It was very beautiful there, but because of the worsening heat, we almost died, so we decided to walk back up to Tim's hostel for an early lunch break with noodles and new water bottles.

Then we took the bus to the start of the Forts Walk, because that's where you can see wild koalas (Magnetic Island has the highest number of wild koalas) - but unfortunately, we didn't see any and had to turn back after the first hundred meters because it was too hot to climb up the steep hills in the midday heat. We also noticed that Linni and I had left our towels behind during lunch, so we quickly walked back, with the plan to catch the next bus back. But we just missed the bus, and since the next one was only coming in an hour and a half, we decided to try hitchhiking for the first time, which was unsuccessful for a long time.

Small open-top Barbie cars were driving around everywhere on the island, because you could rent them cheaply here. Unfortunately, only from 21 years old, otherwise we would have done it too, because they just look really stylish. We were a bit sad when we found out that we couldn't rent one at 18, so we were even more excited when a nice older couple from Brisbane eventually picked us up in their Barbie car. Unfortunately, Tim had to wait at the Forts Walk because there were only 4 seats, which was a bit poorly planned, but in the end, everything worked out because after we collected our towels, another Barbie car took us back in the direction we came from. So we managed to ride in 2 Barbie cars without being 21 and without renting one, which we thought was cool.

After that, we continued down to Alma Bay, where we spread out our towels in the shade under some palm trees and closed our eyes with some music playing - you were unfortunately not allowed to swim here, until a small group of thin 9 to 13-year-old boys and girls in blue wetsuits with pink shirts on top and swimming caps came dancing in for their lifeguard training. We watched the funny group for a while until we walked a few meters to Geoffrey Bay, where there were wild wallabies. There were already some people there feeding the cute little animals with bananas, carrots, and pellets, and we had also bought some food before. We saw quite a few wallabies, but they were much smaller and more timid than the ones we were allowed to feed in the enclosure in the rainforest.

After that, we split up and drove back to our hostels in opposite directions, and it was already dusk when we arrived there.
On this evening, we wanted to redeem our free dinner coupon - I ordered a barbecue pizza, which tasted amazing! The two twins from our hut joined us as well and we chatted for a while until I started watching a movie on Netflix in bed that I had downloaded in Germany - S.H.I.T die Highschool GMBH.

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The next day, we rented two scooters, a red one for Linni and a light blue one for me, to be more flexible overall and also because we wanted to experience driving on the left side of the road up close, and if not with a car, then with scooters.

We first drove back to Horseshoe Bay to have another look at the beach. It was so much fun on the scooter, although you really struggled with the constant inclines on the road with just 50 km/h, the maximum speed you could go. Another good thing was that the monster brakes here couldn't bite you with the wind blowing. Everyone you meet here has at least a few of those bites on their legs.

Then we made our way to Wallaby Road because there was supposed to be a secret koala spot where you can definitely see more koalas than on the more popular Forts Walk that we started yesterday. We were lucky right away and could already see a big sleeping koala from the road, which was really impressive. There were only a few other people there, and the atmosphere was great because everyone whispered to each other where the koalas were in the trees and everyone walked around as quietly as possible.
In the end, Linni and I even managed to take some pictures with a koala and even saw 2 baby koalas - one way up high in the tree and one clinging tightly to its mom.

After that, we drove back to Alma Bay, which we had already been to yesterday, and then to the wallabies because we found them so cute - this time we even saw a little baby wallaby in the pouch of its mom, which we could feed by hand.

In the afternoon, we went to another bay called Picnic Bay, and on the way there, we passed the police station of Magnetic Island and were stopped for an alcohol test. We must have looked very suspicious.

When we arrived, there was a big celebration going on in the bay and there was some really cool live music, but we didn't have much time left with our scooters, so we only walked the long jetty that was there, out onto the sea, and enjoyed the view of the ocean and the coastal town of Townsville on the other side of the water.

After refueling our tanks (the cheapest visit to a gas station of our lives - each of us only had to pay about $2), we returned our scooters and were driven back to the Base Hostel, where we met Maresa and Tim again - the two Germans who had somehow been in the last 3 hostels we stayed at as well.

In the evening, we also met our two new roommates in our hut - also two Germans, from Jena and Mainz - Hannes and Lea, who had been traveling together for a week because Hannes has no plans and Lea organizes everything for him, because they had luckily both gotten a farm job. We might meet Hannes again around New Year's Eve in Sydney. With the two of them and another Austrian girl, we sat on the benches in front of the bar in the evening, which also had a view of the sea, and got our delicious free welcome drink, which we hadn't managed to redeem in the past few days. That evening, there were also funny games, the Barwars, in which many of the participants made fools of themselves, which we watched with amusement.

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On the last half day on Magnetic Island, we made our egg toast again, after which we said goodbye to everyone - except for the two French guys from our room, because as we had learned the day before, they were also traveling to Airlie Beach on the Premier bus and were even staying in the same hostel, the Airlie Beach Magnums. It's crazy how big the backpacker movement is in Australia. You're never alone and you meet like-minded people and follow each other around.

On the ferry back to Townsville, we also saw 2 dolphins that had wandered into the harbor area, but were on their way back out to the open sea. The rest of the way to our next stop will consist of a 3 and a half hour bus ride.

Song of the day(s): Wonderwall by Oasis, because we heard it while hiking and it got stuck in my head.