Magnetic Island was named by Captain James Cook, as when he sailed passed the island he thought his ship's compass went funny. It's just off the Queensland coast from Townsville, and is home to a World War 2 fort, where the Australians kept watch for Japanese invasion.

After the Whitsunday cruise we stopped over on the island for two nights to relax. Luckily we had an upgraded sea view room at Base Backpackers, as the guy booking it did us a favour.

On our second day we took a hike to the World War 2 fort, spotted a koala on the way (supposedly MI has the densist population of koalas in Australia and hence the world, though we're not too sure about that), and then got held captive by a possum hanging around outside our room. You wanna see the claws on these things! Later on it came down to the restaurant to scavenge from the bins, hanging on by it's back feet it got it's head right down in there.

Magnetic Island has a Hawaiian feel to it, as it's a tropical island that gets both a lot of sun and rain, but also all the bus drivers are about fifty and where flowery shirts and socks. Aaahh.