Magnetic Island and Townsville, Australia

I arrived in Australia in the middle of a heat wave in December.  It was weird to hear Christmas music while wiping sweat out of my eyes.  I spent a week on Magnetic Island, with a few days in Townsville before and after.  In Townsville, my hotel was just around the corner from Vietnamese, Indian, Mexican, and Thai restaurants; it was hard deciding which to choose at each meal.  Also near the hotel was a small park with an amazing variety of bird life.  Honestly, in a total of 5 days in town, I never ventured more than 2 blocks from the hotel.  To be fair, 2 of those days it poured rain. 

I had booked a week at an apartment/resort on Magnetic Island and it was fantastic!  On the first day, I booked a bus trip (Magnetic Island Best Bus Tour) around the island and was the only person who signed up.  I admit it was a little weird, but Neal, the owner, was very nice and he tailored the tour to what I wanted to see, mainly wildlife.  He showed me where a mob of rock wallabies live, but it was mid-day and they were all hiding from the sun.  These wallabies live in the rocks that dot the coast of the island.  They come out early in the morning and late in the day to feed.  I saw several signs on what is acceptable to feed them, and its not bread or lettuce.  Apparently, those are slow death to the wallabies as they cause all kind of health problems for them.  Having no luck finding wallabies, Neal turned his attention to koalas and that proved much easier.  Since their only food source, eucalyptus, offers little in the way of nutrition, koalas conserve their energy and sleep about 20 hours a day.   We found three; two were sound asleep high in the tree, never even stirring as we approached.  The 3^rd was hugging a tree but sitting on the ground.  Neal said she was stressed, probably from the heat, so I made sure not to get too close.  The rest of the day was your typical tourist tour, showing me highlights of the island and giving me a bit of history.  Magnetic island had many bays and over the years the locals have scuttled several ships at the mouth of the bays to give them more protection from rough seas and storms.  There are several snorkeling trails, marked by buoys, where you can snorkel from wreck to wreck.  I should have done that early in the week as later it was stormy and the seas too rough.

The next day, I booked a boat tour with Adam and Aquascene Charters.  While I wasn’t on the boat alone, I was the only tourist.  There were 4 other ladies, but all were locals.  It made for a really good trip as I now had 5 tour guides. Much like Neal, Adam really was passionate about his island and spent the entire trip sharing interesting stories and reminiscing with my fellow passengers.  I’m sure my trip was a bit more interesting than most as I got to learn lots of local gossip too.  We stopped in 3 different locations for snorkeling and I was surprised that the fish and coral wasn’t more colorful.  I guess I’ve watched too many shows on the Great Barrier Reef and was expecting it all to look like that.  I saw a lot of drab brown grass and dull white or sand colored coral.  I did see a bit of purple coral, that was really pretty.  It was still very beautiful, and I saw a wide variety of sea creatures including puffer fish and 3 sharks.  Yes, I swam with sharks, never mind that they were just 3-foot blacktip reef sharks, known to be timid and shy.  On shore we saw a big group of tiny crabs.  I waded up to them and they scattered like little bugs.  Those not fast enough to get out of my way, buried themselves in the sand.  At our last snorkeling destination, Neal brought out some raw fish.  Right on que, a group of very large and colorful fish appeared by the boat steps.  Obviously used to handouts, these fish all but jumped out of the water and into Adam's lap.  It was fun swimming with them; they let us get close enough to touch them. 

There were several trails around the island that I wanted to hike, but it was just too hot to do much.  I basically went out early every morning and took pictures of all the amazing birds.   I bought some carrots, on the approved wallaby feeding list, and found a mob of them right next to my apartment.  They let me get quite close as they were eating, and I noticed one was a mamma with a small joey in her pouch.  The baby seemed to want out to explore but mamma had other ideas, so he stayed in but hung out, touching anything he could get his paws on.  He was adorable! 

I visited a koala sanctuary and got to pet one.  I’m usually not a fan of animal interaction tourist exhibits because for the most part, the animals suffer for it one way or another.  In Thailand for example, there is a big push to ban elephant riding.  Not because riding the elephants harm them specifically, but the way there are initially trained is often cruel and the way the animals are treated and cared for when not in front of tourists can be heartbreaking.  One of the supposedly ethical sanctuaries near Chiang Mai, where I stayed in Thailand, came under fire recently because a group of tourists posted videos of the elephants staked on very short tethers and left in the hot sun for 12 hours, with no access to water or shade.  The parks where you get to hold a baby lion or tiger?  Ever wonder what they do when the animals are no longer small, cute, and cuddly?  The often go to farms where they charge big game hunters a fee to kill them in canned hunts.  There are others where you can pet a full-grown cat, who is usually drugged to keep them docile.  Anyway, back to the koalas, I opted not to hold one, but its my understanding that Australia heavily regulates these types of encounters.  It’s illegal in all states except Queensland, where I was.  The koalas can only be held for 30 min a day, and not two days in a row.    The koalas are in the sanctuary because they have been injured and can’t be returned to the wild or were born in captivity.  When stressed or frightened, a mother koala can abandon her baby.  While I didn’t hold one, I did pet it.  The fur wasn’t soft like I thought, more like stiff and wooly.  I had heard others say they smelled bad, but I didn’t notice any smell.

There were other animals in the park, mainly reptiles.  They had a few large snakes, some crocodiles, parrots, and even a wombat.  The ranger held the wombat and people got to stand next to him for a selfie.  I spent most of my time taking pictures of the many birds in the trees and the koalas who were awake and eating, but not for long.   I was snapping away at one when he decided it was nap time, and just like that, he was sound asleep. 

Back by the apartment I found a bird’s nest with 3 babies, pretty close to eye level.   I took a blanket and sat for about an hour, watching both mom and dad come feed them over and over again.  Sometimes they had a piece of a worm or other bug and sometimes they would regurgitate.  It was very interesting, and I got some great pictures.  I went back the next day and it was very windy as a storm was brewing.  I was amazed that the babies, who looked too big to be squeezed in the tiny nest to begin with, didn’t fall out as the thin branch they were anchored to whipped back and forth in the wind.  The baby who looked to be the biggest, kept standing up and stretching and I though for sure he was a goner, but nope, he rode it all out like a pro.  Even when an adult came with food and all 3 were clamoring for attention, they all managed to stay in the nest.  I would love to have stayed on the island longer, if only to see them grow. 

There were also many big white cockatoos. The locals see them as pests because they get into the coconuts hanging high in the trees and chew holes in them to get at the milk. The problem is the coconuts then drop to the ground, potentially on someone’s head. I’m not sure why that’s worse than the coconuts dropping on their own, but there you have it. 

The resort only had about 6 occupied apartments and I got to know some of the other guests.  We all seemed to wander down to the pool in the afternoon.  Magnetic island is definitely someplace I would go back to.  Even though it was a very small island, there was enough to do to keep busy when you consider all the things on land and in the sea.  It’s not too far from the actual Great Barrier Reef and they offer snorkeling and diving trips when the seas aren’t too rough.  Toward the end of my visit on the island and 2 days in Townsville, a cyclone called Owen was just off the coast bringing lots of wind and rain.  The day after I left for Brisbane, it had regained strength and Townsville was bracing for floods and wild weather. 

 

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