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.

Bats

 So whilst we've been exploring the town we have stumbled upon a particular tree in the town centre that is FILLED with bats! unsure as to what sort of bats they were, they make really loud screeching sounds we of course turned to google and wettropics.gov.au confirmed that they are fruit bats (thankfully not after our blood)haha!not the best shot but you can see them hanging in the tree to the right of the image.

Whilst out and about one evening at around dusk the bats leave their trees to find food...combined with a lovely sunset it was an amazing sight to see. The sky was literally filled with bats.

Unfortunately we stumbled upon this guy, (perhaps concussed / sleeping... nah pretty sure dead) he really gives a perspective of how big each of the bats actually are. 

On the same walk back we also came across a small dead bird outside the local shopping centre. Usually I would not find it necessary to document such a thing, however the location of the bird was so bizarre... see for yourselves   

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