Hello Hello

So we left Cairns bright and early to head down to a place called Magnetic Island. There were only about 10 of us on the bus so there was plenty of room for the long drive. First stop was breakfast!! We stooped off by a lake and had some pancakes! It was fairly cold so we didn't stop here for long before moving onto Milla Milla falls - this was the waterfall out of the Peter Andre video and the one they use for herbal essence adverts… and to be honest it was pretty gorgeous! From there we headed to a forest that contained a Curtain Fig tree, it was a fig plant that grew on another tree and took over it with its roots extending from the top of the tree all the way to the ground. After a few hours a girl on the bus Suzy realized that we knew each other from a holiday in Cyprus about 7 years ago… VERY small world.

We arrived in Townsville about half 5 and got the ferry over to magnetic island at 6. Just in case you were wondering Magnetic island is NOT magnetic, its name comes from when Captain Cook first sailed past the island, because his compass went crazy he assumed the island was magnetic, however this was not the case and no one had found out what sent the compass crazy. The Island is mainly made up of huge granite boulders with tropical eucalyptus forests. We were staying on the far side of the island in a place called Bungalow bay. It was hidden in the bush with its own Koala reserve on site!!! As it was fairly late and had been a long day we just had our complimentary beer and headed off to bed - watching out for possums and falling coconuts.

The birds woke us up nice and early the next day, which didn't really matter as we had booked ourselves on the wildlife breakfast. It was an all you can eat buffet (including steak) in the forest with guava champagne. After we ate the guide brought out a croc and a snake for us all to look at and touch. As well as a few birds. The best part however was the koala… it spent most of breakfast asleep in the tree but after we were allowed to give it a cuddle!!!!!! She was so sleepy and soft I wanted to take her home with me. Was really a special moment, I think Ben was more impressed with steak for breakfast to be honest. We spent the rest of the day chilling out topping up our tans on the beach before heading to the bar for dinner.

The next day we had a small lie in then decided to walk around some of the island a bit. So we left our hostel in Horseshoe bay and walked around the east coast line which took us to a number of small private bays, Balding bay, Radical Bay, Florence bay and Arthurs Bay where we stopped for a picnic. The weather was once again gorgeous (still can't believe it is winter) but then again magnetic island averages about 320 days of sunshine a year! So we stayed on Arthur's bay for a little while until the sun wasn't as strong. After a few hours of walking we arrived back rather hot and decided to shower n chill for the rest of the evening. We went to the bar and played bingo (didn't win though) and sat with a couple called Ben and Debbie. My long legs must be yummy as I was still getting bitten even with industrial bug spray on, so we headed to bed fairly early to escape!

On our final day on this beautiful island we caught the bus to Nelly bay to have a look around and buy some lunch from the supermarket to eat on the beach. We joined Ben and Debbie in the bar again that evening for some drinks and pub quiz! We didn't win, however we did win best team name chosen by Ben which was team Rita and the youthful army. Rita was the fairly old lady staying in Ben and Debbie's dorm that joined us for the quiz, but couldn't hear the questions so we had to repeat everyone then explain it very slowly bless her! After a few drinks we returned to our dorm and packed up our stuff in preparation for leaving the Island the next day to head to Airlie beach.

From Maggie Island with love

Nikki and Ben