After staying the first night in the Townsville Backpackers I took a 20 minute ferry to Magnetic Island.

Not only is this a beautiful island but also very well extablished with an IGA supermarket cafe's and resturants and a fanastic and cheap bus service.

It had been suggested to me by a tourist information girl that I should stay at the only camping ground on the island that was attached to the YHA Backpakers on the otherside of the island on a bay called "Horseshoe Bay" (Pictured above)

So I hoped on the bus and within 15 minuets I was checking in.

The set up was wonderfull, once I had setup my tent and stowed my gear away I checked out the grounds which had the usual toilets and laundry but also a kitchen that campers could use with a covered eating area (And a resident possum) as well as a pool with deck chairs and hammocks and of course a Bar!

After checking out the souroundings I Jumped on the bus again and rode it all around the island from one side to the other checking out how large the island actually was. and noting down where I wanted to revisit for Photos and swiming excetera.

Then arriving back in horseshoe bay I Went for a swim in the Stingers net. From November through to May northern Queensland not only has problems with salt water crocodiles attacking swimers but they also have Box jelly fish (Which are deadly) and other "Stingers" such as blue bottles and Irijku which can make you quite sick and are extreemly painfull.

Because of this most places on the ocean have Nets set up so that swimers can swim in saftey. Horseshoe bay had one of these and it was great to be able to go for a swim in what was quite warm water, almost Bath like.

Then after drying off, I took some Great photos of the bay and headed back (just a short walk) to the camping ground. I made some dinner (Sausages on bread) and even got in a few chess games with an english backpacker named "Will",

The next couple of days was more of the same Swiming and taking photographs in the different bays around the island. On one of the days I even caught the ferry back to Townsville just to have a look around and visited the Townsville art gallery and did some balloon tying e.t.c then back on the ferry back to the island.

Fortunately id had three days of perfect weather and got a few good photos before the island was hit by a big storm because I heard about the storm a few hours in advance I made sure the tent was as waterproof as possible took my expensive technological gear (laptop, iphone and camera) and again got on the ferry to Townsville leaving the tent and the rest of my gear behind on the island, and stayed in Townsville for two nights as the storm lasted that long.

It gave me time to explore Townsville a little like the rock pool and city district.While the town is large-ish (about the same size as Wollongong) there really wasn't that much to do.

When the storm finnaly cleared I got on the ferry back to the island as It was also the day I was due to check out. I packed up my gear and checked out of the camping ground and headed straight to the ferry and Townsville as there was a Greyhound bus leaving at mid-day headed for Cairns that I wanted to be on.

When I got to Townsville I got my ticket to Cairns (Because I was to Lazy to Hitchhike and I was also worried it might rain again) which I got on a special for only $56 for the 6 hour trip.

Around 6:15 that night I arrived in Cairns and as I got off the bus was greeted by half a dozen different Backpacker/Hostel Representatives all trying to get us to come and stay at their Hostel. One of them stood out not just because he was so tall but also because he was an Australian which was very unusual.

His Name was Chris and he worked for the hostel "Dreamtime Backpackers" and the even more unsual thing we worked out on the car trip from the bus station to the hostel was that Chris was from Wollongong too. (Who said Australia was a BIG country?)

And so I checked into Dreamtime Backpackers. More about my Time in Cairns in the next Post...