Hey!!! right now we are on yet another island!!! ; ) we seem to love them recently...catching boats out to far away islands to discover untold secrets of australias coast!!! but this one - Magnetic Island - is just amazing. it takes about 2 hours to travel the whole island in a moke - looks like a 'barbie' car!! we were given a quick ride down to the beach by an aussie dude and his girl friend! great fun! we are staying in a resort about 3 minutes from the beach!! its called Bungalow Bay Koala Village and is quite unique!! our dorms are little wooden, peak-roofed tops with little lighting and netted windows! the sounds at night are awesome!! birds, insects, koalas and who knows what else!! unbelievable!! went on a guided bush walk today - got to hols a baby crocodile, a greay back lizard and a koala!!! they feel like sheep wool and although cute - he looked like a nasty bite if he wanted to!!! he pooed on most of us too...nice! ; ) even got to eat some bush food though...yep, ants! they are the green back ones - and the celebrities eat them on celebrity jungle tv show!!! - they actually are quite nice and taste like lemon! not kidding! yum! ; ) we met a lady called lynette in our room and we took a walk through the fields...we were soon joined by about 6 kangaroos and even a couple of baby ones!!! so cute! couldnt believe how close we got to them! just great! after staying a couple of nights there - and making the most of the stunning sunsets off the beach! - we headed back to the mainland coast. Back in Townsville, we booked onto a reef tour. spent the whole day snorkelling off the back of a boat 2 hours out into the Great Barrier Reef!!! was so sad to see how much the reef has died off - largely due to the weather condition 'il nino' and also the tourist activites that continue to disrupt the area! so sad. having said that though, it was still a fab experience and where the coral still had colour it was beautiful; blues, pinks and yellows. the fish were plentiful in the more remote areas of the reef. we ventured further than we were allowed to and went snorkelling in the outer reef for about 10 minutes - til they caught up with us!! ; ) but was amazing there...think the fish know they cant get hasled too much so they stick there! i was happily cruising on the surface looking below at all the water life when jaws appeared!!! yep - a shark!! swam right below me and just cruised the bottom of the sea floor! he was only little but scary enough!!! was amazing though! great experience!! after kicking about for a bit more we headed back on the boat. heading down the coast some more later on...onto Airlie Beach!! more sunshine..yey!!! think thats all for now but its been a great few days getting closer to some if australias amazing wildlife!!! hope all is great there and speak very soon...Georgie x x x