The journey to Magnetic Island was our first experience of Australia’s Greyhound bus, which took six hours to make the journey from Cairns to Townsville. The ride was actually pretty comfortable and the time seemed to fly by, as it often does when we have something interesting to watch on my tablet.
On the way we stopped for a lunch break at a small town where I posted my first postcard home and we took a couple of photos of the water.
When we arrived into Townsville we took a ferry over to Magnetic Island and walked to our second Australian Airbnb. Our first had been an empty house used purely for Airbnb guests, but this one we shared with Paul the owner. Paul is a marine biologist so we were able to ask him loads of questions about all sorts and he gave us some great tips on things to do while we were there.
That evening we decided to go for a walk and on Paul’s recommendation we visited an area populated by a number of wallabies who were used to humans. We stayed for a while, waiting for them all to come out at sunset and feast on all the food people would bring along for them. It was so cute seeing them all, especially the babies in their pouches who would pop out to nibble on the seeds on the ground while their mothers ate.
The next day we spent a lot of time faffing about in the morning, so didn’t leave to explore the island until mid afternoon. We decided to go a walk to the WWII forts on the island, which included some beautiful views and a chance to see sleepy koalas in the wild. We weren’t very good at spotting the koalas, but thankfully we passed a few people who pointed some out for us.
After a long walk in the heat we definitely couldn’t be bothered cooking anything, so we decided to go out for something instead. We stopped at a pub on the opposite side of the island we were staying at and ordered some food. While we were eating we were joined by two guys who had spent the day on the island enjoying their Saturday. It was entertaining chatting to them about all sorts, and because they were just over from Townsville for the day (rather than backpackers like everyone else we meet) the conversation was refreshingly different.
Our final day on Magnetic Island was actually only a half day, with our coach leaving for Bundaberg at 4pm that afternoon. We went for another walk around the island to take some photos and Mark sent out his drone to take a look from the sky. While he was busy shooting video, I got to hang back and watch the wallabies nearby just going about their business, which made me pretty happy.