Maggie Island

Whilst staying in Townsville we had to pay a visit to Magnetic Island, or 'Maggie Island' as its affectionately known as by the locals. Maggie Island is 8 kilometers off Townsville, just a 20 minute ferry ride away. According to local statistics Magnetic Island averages of 320 days of sunshine every year! Fortunately the day that we visited was one of those many sunny days, in fact the weather was beautiful.
The ferry port is in Nelly Bay, and thats where our Maggie island adventure begins!

A map of Magnetic Island 

    

Nelly Bay 

So the best way to get around Maggie Island is on a Moke or as we did in a 'Topless Car'. Basically it looked as though we had borrowed Barbie's car for the day - it was awesome!

    

The island is about 12km from top to bottom and you can only drive on the Eastern side as the middle of the island is dominated by National park and Mt Cook. There are roads that are accessible by 4x4 vehicles and walking tracks, but in Barbie's car we had to stick to the roads. There are a number of secluded beaches, some of which can only reached by foot or by boat.

   

Our first stop was a picnic at 'Picnic Bay'. As we parked up and walked to the beach we noticed that a boat had hit the shore in shallow waters and had sunk with only part of the mast showing above the water. Two Salvage men were in the water attaching buoys and rope to try and salvage the boat.

We sat on the pier and ate our picnic. The end of the pier was blocked off and whilst we were sat there we heard one of the locals say that a tourist had fallen through the end of the pier the previous week!

Then we headed up as far North as we could go, to Horseshoe bay. The stinger nets were out so were we able to enjoy a swim in the 29c turquoise sea, beautiful.

       

After dry off with a bit of sunbathing we then headed back Southwards. we stopped to at Forts to walk along a koala spotting trail. Unfortunately we didnt see any koalas or snakes, plenty of butterflies and amazing views though. We didn't quite make it all the way out to Arthur bay as we didn't have the time.

     

          

We then headed down to Geoffrey Bay and finally to Nelly bay as we had to return the Topless car and got the next ferry back to Townsville.

            

                                     

        

A house with an amazing view - overlooking Geoffrey Bay.    

       

We didn't see any frogs hopping around, just this one playing dead. 

      

We had a brilliant day zooming around maggie Island in the topless car. If your in the Townsville area a visit to Magnetic Island is a must!
                            

      

Townsville from a distance - photograph taken on the ferry on our way back from Maggie Island.

Hire a scooter for the day... the best way to do some exploring

So we've past the same scooter and bicycle hire shop pretty much everyday that we've been here, but as its our last week in Cairns we decided to hire one each for the day and do some exploring of our own!
Armed with very fetching helmets, a map, some nutella sandwiches for me, vegemite for Jamie and a few directions from the owner we were out on the road.... (after id done a few practise laps around the car park)

We really wanted to go to the beach so decided to head North, up to Yorkeys Knob and Palm Cove beaches, around an hour or so away.
So we headed out, Jamie leading the way. we had to use the Captain Cook highway to get up to the beaches, however we weren't able to ride on the highway itself,as in places its a 100kmph road, but in a bicycle lane on the side of the highway which was awesome!
                 
So we got to Yorkey's Knob, parked up the scooters and headed to the beach!

                                                                                                       
                         

           Then it was back on the scooters to continue up the coast to Palm Cove.

       

Palm Cove is a breathtakingly beautiful beach, if you get the chance, you should definitely go there and see for yourself! 

                                                                  
                                                    

                                                                              

          

         

Its coming to the end of the stinger season so you can't just swim anywhere in the sea safely. There are designated swimming areas protected by huge stinger nets, so we did a bit of swimming at Palm cove, the sea was like 29 degrees - Lush! 

After a couple of hours & a picnic at the beach we got back on the scooters and headed to Baron Gorge National Park, to see some more rainforest and waterfalls & Lake Placid. 

     

Lake Placid.... We've all seen the film, with the giant croc!

            

    

Barron Gorge 

             

                               

            

  

It was great to drive through the rainforest on the scooters and we'd recommend it to everyone. A brilliant way to get around Cairns, enjoy the beaches, rainforest & sunshine!

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