So my next venture took me across the waters from Townsville to a little island which goes by the name of Magnetic Island. I packed my bags up and put them in storage, as I was camping on Magnetic Island I thought it would be wise to only take the essentials and save on the unneeded lugging of bags.

I made the short trip across on the ferry and then caught the bus to the hostel. I set up my camp and then made my way to the local supermarket to get a drink and maybe something different to the noodles I had with me. Everything was at least $1 more than on mainland, which is already ridiculously expensive. So I bought the cheapest drink I could find and made my way back to Base. It was now time to chill by the beach and pool, after working on a Banana farm for three months I thought it was the least I deserved. I proceeded for the rest of the day soaking up the rays trying to get rid of my ridiculous t-shirt tan I had acquired and making use of the pool facilities.

That evening I had a steady one, only having a few beers and a cheeky cider. There was a trivia quiz going on, but I was feeling pretty tired, must have been too much sun, so I decided to hit the sack pretty early. I slept pretty well in my tent until around 5am, when I was woken up by a bird trying to emulate the bleep test. If you don't know what the bleep test is, it's a fitness test used in the sporting world, where participants have to run between two points before in time with the bleep. And the bird was doing an immaculate job of bleeping every few seconds. I was finally falling to sleep when the sun rose and made my tent like an oven. I jumped straight out and went in search of some shade. I didn't have far to walk, the hammocks were being put back out and were shaded by trees, so I decided to perch myself on one for a couple of hours. I woke up and had some toast; it didn't really do anything for my appetite so I decided to have a Bacon and Egg roll from the restaurant. It was ok, but I was fed up of paying for average meals, so I headed back to the supermarket to see if I could find any bargains. Some more noodles, a loaf of bread and a mac in a sac (microwaveable macaroni cheese) later I was heading back to the hostel. I decided I would walk to one of the Island's many Bay's / Beaches. I went to PICNIC Bay, this was only a short walk from my hostel so semt ideal. Although it was really nice and looked directly out to Townsville it was empty, so after a short while I decided to head back and make use of the pool and hammock facilities again before the nights big full moon party. I was pretty excited for the full moon party, it was the main reason I had come to Magnetic Island, and I even stayed in Innisfail and extra 3 weeks so I come to this party even though most people told me it was nothing special. If you are an avid reader of this blog you will be aware that I have already been to two full moon parties on my travels, the first in Hoi An, Vietnam and the second the mental full moon party in Koa Pha Nang, Thailand. I knew this wouldn't be a patch on the Thailand party but I thought I would be open minded and give it chance even though it cost a small fortune ($45) to attend. This maybe because it was a Halloween special or that a band called Arrested Development were headlining. The party was due to start at 5pm. 5pm came and the place was dead. It had not got off to the grandest of starts, but in all fairness there was a sense of things to come in the air. It felt like at any point it could boom and there you go, a full on, mad as toast, full moon party in full swing. I thought that point maybe when the sun had set. I was wrong! Yes readers, it does happen occasionally, not often but I am wrong on the rare occasion. The pace was still dead there was only me, 3 Crayola crayons, Santa Claus and an Asian couple at the party. Santa Claus did assure me that things would pick up. It kept steadily getting busier, but no boom as of yet. I was pretty tired seen as though I was rudely awakened that morning by the bird and the sun, so I decided to have a power nap. One hour later and the party was flowing much more. There were some great fancy dress costumes out, zombie where wally's, Frankenstein and tin tin. But my personnel favourite had to be the girl dressed as a dead washing machine. It made me laugh for a good 5 minutes. The party was good, there were some excellent fire shows, the dj's were top quality and Arrested Development played a cracking set but I wasn't getting into it for some reason, probably because I was missing my Crown family, so I grabbed a slice of pizza and called it a night at about 2am.

The next morning I was woken up by the same bird, same sun and people still awake watching the sun rise. I decided to make use of the hammocks again before going to see what the North of the Island had to offer. I purchased an all-day bus pass and hoped on to go to Horseshoe Bay, the largest bay on the Island and the place where all the water sports and facilities can be found. I personally was itching to go on a jet-ski, something I've wanted to do for as long as I can remember and at Horseshoe Bay they did to Jet-ski adrenalin tours one for 90 minutes and the other for three hours. I enquired about prices and my dreams were shattered when I was priced out. $190 for the 90 minute tour and $380 for the three hour tour. I made do with a schooner of beer and then headed down to the next place. Arcadia was my net destination and this had two bays Geoffrey Bay and Alma Bay. They too were ok, but I was getting hungry so headed back to the hostel to make some Mac in a Sac. When I got back there was a decent guitarist on so I had a beer and watched him play his set, after that I met a guy called Brett, a guy I met in Mission Beach when I was partying for my birthday. The night then went a bit crazy. Villa were playing Norwich and Brett being a big Villa fan was desperate to see the game. This began our search around the island trying to find somewhere that would show the game. First up was picnic bay, we thought we were in luck, but they closed just before kick-off as there was only us two in the pub, they advised us to jump on the bus and go to Arcadia, which we did. Villa had scored. Brett was happy that they had scored but pissed off he had missed the goal. We got to the next place and the TV screens had no football on, we asked the owner and she tried to find it but she had no luck. We contemplate going to Horseshoe Bay, but a taxi would take up to an hour, the next bus wasn't due for another hour so we were resigned to missing it. Until an Irish guy who worked at the bar came to our rescue and found the right channel just in time for the second half. Brett was chuffed. I got the tequilas in to celebrate. They were horrible. Villa got a man sent off and Norwich equalised in the dying minutes. Brett wasn't best pleased. A few beers later and after we got kicked out of the pub we realised we had missed the last bus. We began the long walk back - around 6km, trying to flag every car down, eventually we flagged a taxi and got back to the hostel where I stumbled in my tent where I was kept up most of the night by the sex noises coming from the next tent.

The next morning, yep you've guessed it; I was woken up by the sun. I felt rough as a badgers arse. I was in a bad way. I threw up, had a shower and threw up again. I made toast to settle my stomach but that didn't work. It didn't seem like it was going to be a fun day as I had a ferry to catch back to Townsville. I battled through however packed my stuff up and headed to the ferry to head back to Townsville and have a reunion Tom who planned to hitch-hike down the coast.

So that's it for Magnetic Island, it was a nice relaxed beautiful island.

Stay safe

Adi

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