After our adventures way up north, we headed to Magnetic Island, a little island 8 km from Townsville on the mainland. Prior to European settlers, the island was known as Yunbenun by its original inhabitants. Australian Aborigine people used the island and had seasonal camps at a number of the beautiful bays, traveling by canoe from the mainland. Magnetic Island got its current name when Captain Cook sailed up the eastern side of Australia, back in 1770, and thought the island was messing with his compass. It is known by locals as Maggie Island. A few things make Maggie an ideal vacation destination for our family. First of all, more than half of the island is a national park, and the population is a little over 2000 people (plus 800 koalas, multiplying from 80, that were introduced to the island in 1931). The bird life is phenomenal, as well as the ocean life, as much of the island is surrounded by reefs and it is part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The island has a number of hiking trails that lead to tiny communities and secluded bays. It is considered part of the dry tropics (as opposed to the wet tropics that we just came from, causing frizzy hair and laundry that never dries) and boasts 320 days of sunshine per year. Another aspect that makes it perfect for us to visit is its World War II history, which one of us is fascinated by (Kevin). Townsville, which sustained three Japanese air raids in July, 1942, was an important military base at the time and Magnetic Island held a very important defensive position. An artillery base and observation post were built on the island, and a relaxation camp was set up for military personnel. We got to explore the remaining buildings from this time. Anyway, I will let the pictures do most of the talking on this post. Oh how we loved our time together on Maggie!
Our ferry ride.
View of Magnetic Island.
Looking back at Townsville Harbour.
Kookaburras! One of my favourite things about Australia is listening to the kookaburras laughing.
We got to feed the sweet rock wallabies carrots. They are quite limber on the rocks and hide so well with their camo-fur.
One of the hikes we did was up to the old military forts. The views were fantastic! We visited this bay later in the week for some really great snorkelling. You can see the reef from here - the big dark patch on the left side of the bay.
Green tree ant nest.
Baby and Mama, sitting in a tree...
Perhaps this is Papa, having a little "me-time".
I just couldn't get enough of this sweet babe.
It even gave us a little sleepy koala yawn!
This was one of the places artillery was stored. It was pitch black inside, so we thought we should see what kind of creepy crawlies were living in it by shining our cell phone lights all around. We saw two very large huntsman spiders and one bat. Needless to say, we didn't stick around, in spite of the one cute gecko we saw inside as well.
More great views.
Townsville in the distance.
Horseshoe Bay.
Arthur Bay.
We attempted some family selfies when (surprise surprise) some nice German backpackers came along and offered to take our family photo. Poor Jo had just fallen and bloodied both of his knees, so he was not his goofy photo-ready self.
Making friends with lorikeets back at our apartment. I can't get over their bright colours.
One day, we hiked from one bay to another more secluded bay and spent the day there. Here we are at the start.
We were going to stop at Balding Bay, but there were several warnings of this being an unofficial nudist beach. I thought it would be a good cultural experience for our kids to check it out (perhaps the super-hippie parent trying to come out), but my stodgy-parent side won on this one. In my experience, it seems that it's usually the elder generation who feels free enough to share their bodies for the whole world to see. However, Magnetic Island has a pretty happening hostel on one end of it, so this nudist beach may have been filled with a bunch of beautiful, hormonal, 20-ish-year-old Europeans. That may have been too much of a cultural experience for us and our kids. :)
Almost there!
We had such a great day at Radical Bay, and we nearly had the whole place to ourselves! I was a little nervous about sharks and having virtually no one there to rescue us, so we only let the kids go in belly-button deep. Each of the lovely swimming bays on the island has buoys lining the openings that have large hooks and shark bait on them. This is thought to help deter the larger sharks from entering the bay where people like to swim. I'm not sure if knowing this made me feel better or worse.
On another day, we had an amazing afternoon of snorkelling in beautiful Arthur bay. We also rented a reef board (a floating board with a window to view the reef) for the kids to try out.
One evening, we thought we would go and watch some cane toad races. A local pub holds these races every Wednesday evening to help raise money for the Surf and Life Saving Club on the island. Basically, people bid on the toad they think will reach the edge of the circle first in lively auction style. It was a super fun evening for all of us and the boys got to hold poisonous cane toads at the end of it. Calla passed on this opportunity. {As a side note, the cane toad was introduced to Australia (along with a number of other pests with no natural predators) to try and get rid of the cane beetle in sugar cane. Whoever had this brainchild, failed to realize that cane beetles in Australia live at the top of sugar cane. Now how do you suppose the cane toad is supposed to get to the tippy top of 10+ foot high sugar cane?}
The Bush-Stone Curlew. We had a bunch of these living around our little apartment and we loved them. They have a haunting call (reminding me of my very favourite bird call of the Canadian loon) and they are nocturnal. Falling asleep to their songs was a little piece of heaven for me.
Our last day - a beach day on yet another beautiful bay - Horseshoe Bay. Calla and I went for a loooonnnnngggg walk on the beach.
And...back on the road again after a beautiful family vacation. We had a pitstop for our annual chocolate bar to celebrate Kevin's Grandma's birthday. It's a great way for the whole Boettger-Poettcker clan to remember her.
