G'day Mate!

We arrived on Magnetic Island late afternoon on Friday and settled at X Base Backpackers, a place recommended to us by many. We were allocated two beds in an eight bed dorm joining another English girl and a group of five Irish. We spent the evening in the bar having a few drinks with our new roomies and retired to our beds at half ten for an early-ish night.

We awoke and started our only full day on the island by strolling to the supermarket and buying our supplies for breakfast, lunch and dinner - spending only $22, the equivalent of what we would spend on just one meal each in any restaurant here! After returning and eating breakfast, we got bus tickets and made our way to Forts Walk; a trail through the National Park visiting the Fortifications built by the Australian and American armies during the war to stop the Japanese from invading Australia. Along the walk we were lucky enough to see lizards of many different sizes and species but the real gem was as we were leaving - after an hour and a half walk - a wild koala! He was lounging in a tree right above the walkway, right at the beginning of the trail (we searched high and low during our one and a half hour walk in the blazing heat for koalas and saw none, he was right at the start all along!).

We've just arrived back at X Base and plan to make dinner, pasta and sauce, have a few drinks and go to bed before another installment of Oz Experience to Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays tomorrow.

Our second Oz Experience journey wasn't as exciting as the first, mainly because there were only three people on the bus - two of which were us! We had a four hour journey ahead of us and our driver 'Nipples' gave us a few facts on the way but there was virtually nothing between the two destinations. We drove through Ayr and later Bowen, where the film 'Australia' was filmed before making a quick stop at a petrol station and ploughing onto Airlie Beach.

Lots of love, Sophie and Kie xx