NORTH QLD ADVENTURES - DAY 28 - MAGNETIC ISLAND - TOWNSVILLE.

 We set the alarm this morning, as we needed to be up at 6am ready to leave by 7am as we needed to be at the Sealink Terminal in at Townsville to park the car and be ready to catch the 7.45am ferry to Magnetic Island where we were spending the day.

I had convinced Steve to take the drone with us today as the day was our own, we had plenty of time to just chill out and explore the island at our leisure as we had hired a little roofless 4WD for the day.

 

 

The ferry ride over only took about 20 minutes and once we were on the island we headed to Isle Car Hire to pick up our vehicle.  All up our ferry tickets and car hire came to $160 for us both, and I am so pleased we went with this option as although the island has many many walking tracks but at this time of year it is terribly hot and we would have  really struggled to get around.

Whilst I would definitely hire a car again,  I was pretty disappointed in the condition of the car that we hired considering the cost of it.  It was dinted and scratched and it rattled and had a clunky tail shaft.  The excess for writing it off was $4,500 and yet they would have been lucky to be able to sell it for even $1000.  They were definitely no where near as good as their advertising brochures made them out to be.  Because we had opted for an open roof car, the car was unlockable so it meant we had to carry anything of value with us when we hoped out of the car. 

Still we were thankful for a way to be able to get around the highland and it was fun to have the wind in our hair as we drove along.  We were also thankful for a cool breeze too as it was pretty hot being in the hot sun..

Once Steve had signed all the paper work we headed off to explore Nelly Bay and Picnic Bay first before heading right down to the other end of the island at Horseshoe Bay.

The drive to Picnic Bay was lovely, winding up around a headland, our first stop off was at Nelly Bay where we stopped to take a photo of the beach.  There was a little mobile coffee van set up here with rugs and bean bags scattered on the ground and several folk sitting on them enjoying their coffees whilst live music was being played there by a lone guitarist.  There was also an old piano nestled amongst the trees and some pretty cool seat benches made out of odd shaped timber from nearby trees, all adding to the atmosphere.

From here we continued further along the coast until we came to Picnic Bay.

With a sweeping beach, tranquil setting and the iconic jetty, Picnic Bay on Magnetic Island is a quite a  spectacular location.   We parked the car under some shady trees and it was here that Steve decided to drag out his drone and take some footage of the bay and jetty before too many people arrived.

We did have one tourist who was quite intrigued with Steve’s drone and was happy to sit nearby and ask him questions.  After spending around half an hour on the beach here, flying the drone we decided to head off to find some public toilets before we set off further to explore the island…

We found them near the jetty.  We decided to leave a walk on the jetty to later in the day when we planned to return here on our way to West Point to watch the sun set.  I did though take some photos of it and also the beach close by and the artwork that was pretty prominent in this area…

We only had a limit of 80kms on the clock before we had to start paying extra per kilometre so decided that the best thing we could do was travel all the way up to Horseshoe Bay first and then stop off at each of the other Bays on our way back.

Horseshoe Bay is the premier location for watersports on Magnetic Island.   We noticed along the shores of Horseshoe Bay, there were an array of equipment hire options including jet skis, kayaks, stand up paddle boards and more! This Bay also provides a great swimming enclosure with life savers manning the beach especially in the area in front of the cafes.    The shady foreshore also offered magnificent views across the rocky outcrops and blue ocean waters.

Horseshoe Bay offered us the perfect location to set up our camera and take some photos of us in our little car and we took some fun photos here to help us remember this great day for years to come.  

 

When we picked up our car we were told that if we wanted lunch on the island we should make sure that we find somewhere to eat before 1pm as a lot of the little cafes start to shut up shop by then, so as it was after 11.30am and there was an avenue of restaurants, cafes and bars along the foreshore here that we would have our lunch here.

Steve found us a picnic table on the foreshore and I headed across the road to find us a lunch option.  I came across a little Mexican café called Noodies and ordered a chicken burrito with homemade slaw with sour cream and a couple of drinks and we enjoyed it on the beach front where we also enjoyed watch the seagulls playing around near a tap, and several other young people attempt to walk a tight rope which was set up on the beach

 

We spent a good hour or more on the beach here.  After we had finished lunch, he went for a walk along the beach towards the rocks whilst I stayed back with the car (as we had our drone just sitting on the back seat).

On his way back from his walk he came across a gelato shop, so after checking with me, decided that a nice way to finish off our lunch might be getting a gelato as it all looked pretty delicious.  He walked back and got us a macadamia nut and rum and raisin gelato each.  We had to eat them pretty quickly as the wind was making the gelato melt and run.

It was closer to 2pm before we left Horseshoe Bay to head back along the south coast to visit more of the little Bays.  We were unable to visit Arthur’s Bay and Florence Bay as we were not allowed to take our little car off road and traval over the 4WD tracks needed to access these bays.  It was also way to hot to park the car and do the three hour  return walk to them those Bays.  

The walk to “The Forts” would have been really interesting also, and it is where you can see the koalas in the wild, but because of the heat we even refrained from doing it as well.  We have decided though that we would like to come back to Magnetic Island in the cooler months and do a few of the walks as I am sure the scenery would be stunning from some of the lookouts.  For this visit though, we were just content to chill out on the beaches and just soak into our minds and memories the magnificent day we were experiencing. 

“The Forts” walk leads to the fascinating historic WWII fortifications and infrastructure.  The track on this walk ascends, sometimes steeply to follow a ridge behind the bays before you arrive at the ruins of the Forts complex which operated during World War II.

The Australian Coast Artillery Units operated the Forts complex from 1943 until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.  This walk is also the walk to take if you want to see dozing koalas up in the trees. 

The stunning 360-degree views from the top of the fortification are billed as definitely worth the work and it will be something on our list of things to do when next we visit Magnetic Island

We continued around to Alma Bay where we stopped again to enjoy the scenery on this beautiful beach.  It is also the other beach that Steve dragged out his drone.  He managed to get some great footage of the bay and some great shots of the granite boulders.

 

 

 

This beach is a very popular swimming beach not only for the locals but visitors to the island as well, and is patrolled on the weekend by Life Savers from the Arcadian Life Saving Club.  Steve met one of these life savers who spent quite some time chatting to him on the beach about his life on Magnetic Island and his three jobs. (iTechologies, B & B business and his volunteering as  a life guard on the beach and in the pool).  He also warned against swimming at West Point as it is a breeding ground for sharks.

The beach here was absolutely stunning in colour today, with clear blue skies and deep blue water.  The bay is encompassed by huge granite rocks which add to the grandeur of the bay.  There are plenty of public amenities which include, shaded seating along the foreshore, gas barbecues, picnic tables, shaded children’s playground, changing areas and toilets.  

From here we moved onto Geoffrey Bay which is a Marine National Park Zone and also home to some rock wallabies.   We drove out to the old barge jetting and this is where we found several little rock wallabies.  There were a couple of girls there watching them when we arrived and they offered us some carrot to feed them too.  They are such cute and shy creatures but I managed to get a couple of photos of them.

 

There was a short walk out among the rocks that afforded some good views of the very rocky shoreline of Geoffrey Bay.  There were a few locals that came out to feed the fish from this barge jetting also.  The tide was out when we were there which highlighted just how shallow this bay really is. 

By now it was almost 4pm, so we decided to head back towards Picnic Bay again to take a walk out along the jetty.  Because of the heat we had drunk most of our water, so Steve stopped at the local Food works store and we bought an Iced Tea drink each along with a packet of Strawberry Cream shortcake biscuits to have for afternoon tea. 

Picnic Bay was beautiful at this time of the afternoon.  There was plenty of shade and we were happy to sit on a bench under a large shady tea and watch the goings on in the bay.  People out kayaking, swimming, rowing a little dingy.  There was even a glass bottom tourist boat with a pirate flag take a group of tourists out for a jaunt in the waters around the island.

After enjoying our afternoon tea we had a bit of a camp on the beautiful green grass before heading out for a walk along the jetty. 

The jetty went out into some deep water and there was a sheltered cover at the end.  Unfortunately, there were no seats to sit down.  On our way out we noticed a sea eagle sweeping down to pick-up left-over bait and then soaring above over our heads.  We tried to take a few shots of it, but it was just awesome to stand and watch his maneuvering, his diving, his soaring and we spent quite some time admiring this beautiful creature.

By the time we walked back in off the jetty it was after 5pm, so with a quick toilet stop we then headed out to West Point so that we could sit on the beach and watch the sun set over the ocean.

It was quite a rough 10km ride with half of the journey being on a corrugated dirt road.  The suspension in our vehicle was not good, and it was quite a bumpy ride as the vehicle shuddered and creaked over each bump.

 

We weren’t the only ones to sit on the beach.  When we arrived, there were already several parties there waiting.   Steve was particularly envious as he watched a couple of men reel in several good size Queenie fish from the beach.  They seemed to be catching them one after another.  They didn’t keep any of them rather choosing to catch and release after the customary photo.

Several more cars loads of folk joined us before the sun finally went below the horizon. Whilst it was a lovely to sit on the beach and watch the sun go down, it wasn’t the best sunset as there was a little too much low cloud on the horizon.  Still a beautiful moment shared with the love of my life….  Feeling blessed.

 Once the sun set below the horizon, we took off as we didn’t want to have to deal with other vehicles on the dirt road, considering we had an open top vehicle and there was no way we could prevent the dust that would come from other vehicles travelling back along this road. 

 

We also wanted to be back into Nelly Bay before it was completely dark to return the car.  We arrived back just after 7pm, returned the car and high tailed it to the ferry to check on when the next ferry was due.  It turned out that we had missed it by 10 minutes, and the next one wasn’t due until 8pm.  

 As it would end up being after 9pm by the time we arrived home, we decided to walk back up the road to the little café (SOS – “Stuffed on Seafood”) and try and order a bit to eat and have our dinner here on the island, so that all we had to do when we got home, was pack up ready for an early start in the morning and head to bed.   We were both pretty exhausted after our long day out in the sun. 

 Surprisingly there were quite a few people on the ferry heading back to Townsville and even morning arriving over at Magnetic Island.  A quick trip back to the mainland, a walk down to the car and home…

We meant to go fuel up for our trip tomorrow but got back to the caravan park before we realized.  In the end, Steve ducked out again to fuel up as it was much easier to do it now than with the van on in the morning…

I went off to have a quick shower whilst he was gone, he arrived not longer after I got back from my shower.  I put a cuppa on for us, and loaded the photos from today onto my computer and once he got back, we had a cuppa together and then literally crawled into bed.  We were exhausted.