21/12/2009

The journey from Mission Beach to Townsville took around 4 hours. Along the way we stopped at Tully, Australia's wettest place apparently. Here they have a statue of a massive golden gumboot that rises 8 metres into the air and is said to be that tall as that was the amount of rainfall that Tully recorded in 1950, an Australian record.

For lunch we stopped at a small town called Cardwell where me and Steph tried a classic Australian pie and ate strectching our legs along the pier.

Arriving in Townsville we were dropped at the ferry terminal then boarded a boat straight to Magnetic Island.

Magnetic Island, ah Magnetic Island. An beautiful island full of highs and lows, peaks and troughs. Peaks like feeding the wild rock wallabies then sitting on a sunbaked rock and watching the sunset to troughs like afterwards returning to our hostel to find bedbugs. Peaks like renting a topless car and cruising the island in the sun to troughs like getting pulled over by the police for not having a seatbelt on (even though I did, tucked under my arm) and getting an on the spot fine of $300!!!

Anyway. We decided to stay at the cheap hostel on the island called Magnums, it was only A$18 a night and situated on a nice beach. That evening we went to see the rock wallabies. They were awesome. They are tiny and live amongst the rocks at one end of the beach. A few of them had joeys in their pouches which made it even cooler.

Back at the hostel that night we found out that the hostel kitchen was little to be desired. No hobs for the pasta we had bought so we improvised and did it all in the microwave.. it actually worked out really well and tasted good.

That night, steph found a few bugs in her bed but we weren't aware they were bed bugs. In the morning, after not much sleep we found blood spots on our sheets and we knew then it was definitely bed bugs. I got up and kicked up a fuss at reception, I was not happy to say the least. They fumigated our bags and we washed everything to make sure we got rid of them. Then they upgraded us to a room on our own, which we checked vigorously before accepting. The only reason we didnt change hostels was because we would have lost the money we had already paid for 3 nights accommodation.

To cheer ourselves up we decided to rent the novelty cars on the Island called topless mokes (see the photos) We had a great day. We drove the length of the island, which wasn't difficult as it isn't that big, with some great scenic ocean roads. We made a picnic and had it at horseshoe bay in the sun, before going for a dip in the stinger-free nets.
After that we drove to a koala sanctuary where we got the chance to see and hold crocodiles, snakes and koalas. You had to pay extra to actually hold the koala so we didn't but we still patted it and got up close, which was cool. On our way out it was time to feed the Lorikeets. These are multicoloured noisy birds, look abit like parrots. The guide brought out a big pallet of what looked like mushy bread in water and gave us all handfulls. Then it was madness. The birds flew onto our hands, heads, shoulders... anywhere there was space they landed, it was crazy but good fun.
On the way back to our hostel after being pecked to death by the birds I was taking photos of steph driving so tucked the seatbelt under my arm. And we got pulled over by the police and they thought I didnt have my seatbelt on but I had it tucked under my arm so they gave me an on the spot fine of $300. Crazy, but there was nothing I could say so we just drove on. A few moments later, as we were driving along the road we spotted a wild Koala Bear in a tree not too far from the road so we jumped out and took some photos, was so much more amazing to see them in their natural habitat in the wild.

That night we had an early night after a long day. Whilst cooking our pasta in the microwave I threw the pasta sauce jar in the bin and a possum poked its head out the bin as if to say 'watch it mate, im trying to eat here'. There is so much wildlife on the island, its everywhere you look.

The next day we decided to have a chilled out day and spent it mostly on lying next to the hostel pool which was really nice. We booked our greyhound bus for christmas eve to Airlie Beach where we already had some accommodation booked and went to watch the toad racing that was on every week at the hostel. Apparantely it is quite a big deal and a lot of locals come to watch it. It was very bizarre and basically involved people buying toads in an auction before each race and if your toad won you got the money. Was fun to watch.

The following morning we were up early to catch the ferry back to the mainland so we could jump on our bus to Airlie Beach.