Chapter 4 Magnetic Island & Whitsunday Islands

On Thursday, we parked our car at the ferry in Townsville and walked across. You can already see the island from Townsville, so the journey only took about 25 minutes.
Once we arrived, we took the bus to our hostel. As we were entering our room, we were already asked by our roommates if we wanted to go on the 1 1/2 hour Koala Walk together.
No question about it, because the koalas, who live freely on the island, were our main focus.
So on the same evening, to our fullest satisfaction, we saw several koalas.
We spent the rest of the evening, together with the two Germans and a Dutch, having a beer or two.
We spent the next four days at the beautiful, various bays, visited the koalas and wallabies several more times, and went snorkeling to cool off.

When we got back to the car, we were greeted by the first travel setback. Countless little ants had nested in our car during our time on Magnetic Island and had eaten our packed food. They even managed to get into the sealed pasta packs! So we had to empty out and clean the entire car before it got dark. Two hours and 30 Australian dollars later, we had vacuumed up most of the ants, but some still hid in the countless cracks of the car.
Anyway, today we are virtually ant-free! *Joy*

Our next destination was Airlie Beach, from where we took a 2-day sailing trip to the Whitsunday Islands. With 25 passengers and 3 crew members, we sailed on the SV Whiteheaven to Whitehaven Beach, which, as the name suggests, is known for its very white sand. Unfortunately, we had some bad luck with the weather and encountered the first rainfall in weeks. In addition, there was the constant wind that made the trip quite rocky. Well, all in all, the weather reminded us of the Hamburg summer.
To summarize our sailing trip in shortened form:
Despite the weather, we had a great tour! In addition to the beautiful Whitehaven Beach, we were offered great snorkeling spots, a relaxed crew and fellow passengers, and a real sailing experience. Absolutely worthwhile.
Now we're spending one more night in Airlie Beach before heading to Brisbane.

Until then,

your Louis & Jonas