We decided to go on a day trip to Magnetic Island which is just off the Queensland coast near Townsville. It gets its name from Captain Cook who named it Magnetical when his sailing instruments went hay-wire whilst passing by the island.

It hadn't really been on our list of things to do in Australia, but an island that boasts 320 days of sunshine, nice beaches, and has a few walks certainly sounded our kind of place.

Although the catamaran journey was only 30 minute it brought back memories of my previous time on a boat just a week or so ago. However, this time as we were thrown up and down with the waves I managed to keep my breakfast down!

The island is covered it trees with just a few small villages housing a couple of thousand permanent residents. As we got off the boat at Nelly Bay and headed along the road we found the place very quiet and the houses and buildings mostly hidden by trees.

As the road ended we began to walk up through the rainforest clambering over stones with the sun beating down through the gaps in the canopy. It felt like the walks we used to do over the top of Agistri in Greece. In fact the quietness and ambience of the place was very much like Agistri.

As was approached the highest part of the walk we started to see views over Horseshoe Bay. We continued along the path for more lookout spots. In among the greenery were big rocks often stacked on top of each other to form a column. Their neat form looked like they had been placed there, but they were in fact natural.

We descended down to Arcadia taking a short detour to get a view over Alma Bay. This was rather pretty especially as a sailing boat came past as I was taking photos.

After our two hour walk we took the bus to Horseshoe Bay to get a well deserved beer and rest on the beach. The bay was typical of the rest of the island - calm, quiet and relaxing, with the odd hired Moke (open top car) driving around.

We could have quite happily stayed for a couple of nights, but as we were only on a day trip we headed back to the ferry terminal to catch the boat back to our camp in Townsville.

Katy