Magnetic Island

After a very short ferry ride from Townsville, we found ourselves on Magnetic Island. Our accommodation for the next two nights was the flashpacker Xbase hostel. On the surface the hostel looked great as it had a pool, a large deck, laundry and kitchen. Unfortunately it was missing one key element, an overzealous perfectionist owner (preferably German). Hostels just don’t work properly unless they are officiously run by sadistic old lady. Xbase was a case in point. After checking into Xbase, we went to our dorm room and discovered that our beds had been slept in, so we went back to reception and informed the disinterested child behind the desk. His response was, “How bad are they?”. It took another forty minutes of debating before they would supply us with clean sheets. We spent that night drinking in the hostel, and our blurry vision helped us to forget just how filthy our accommodation was.

The next day we decided to go and rent some bicycles so that we could tour the island. After 40 minutes walking in the blazing sunshine we found the bike rental shop and walked right passed it. It wasn’t the right weather for any kind of physical exertion. We then happened upon the Moke rental outlet, which suited our requirements better so we hired one of those instead. For those of you not familiar with a Moke; try to imagine the offspring of a forty-year old army jeep and a Mini. We toured Magnetic Island in the Moke from Horseshoe Bay in the north down to Picnic Bay in the south. After all our exertion we decided that we deserved a nice dinner so we went to the local pizzeria and sat down outside to enjoy our feast. Within minutes we were invaded by a possum, a curlew and a Labrador; all of whom we’re keen for a slice. The Australian wildlife is far more forthcoming than we’d like.



The following morning we drove down to the Bungalow Bay Koala Village for breakfast. This was the highlight of our time on the island. Not only were we given a fantastic breakfast, but we also got to share our table with a variety of different animals including Crocodiles, Snakes, Koalas and Frogs. On reflection, this wasn’t all that different from our dinner the previous night.