Nothing really doing that next day. We drove down to Mission Beach, just to check it out. The beach itself was quite nice and we chilled there for a bit. We ate some watermelon that we picked up from one of the farms on the way down and laid out in the shade.
That was one of the better things about North Queensland. You encounter so many farms driving through the country. And a lot of them have stands filled with fruits and vegetables. No one is attending them either. Not that we stole anything. You just take what you want and drop some money in the box. Watermelon, papaya, jackfruit, pumpkin, and all kinds of veggies. We ate very healthy on this trip.
We tossed around the idea of renting a boat for a few days. There are a ton of small (and big islands) off the shore here and it would have been pretty cool to check them out on our own time. But that never materialized. Not having service out in the bush hurts your chances of finding a rental. You can’t arrange anything.
We drove for most of the day and arrived at Toomulla just as the sun was setting. This put us within shouting distance of Townsville. We drove over there in the morning and jumped on the ferry over to Magnetic Island.
When we were in the Daintree we met Alejandra (the lady with the super pimped out van). Long story short, she has a friend who just moved to Magnetic Island who recently bought a house there. She had been fixing it up for a few weeks at that point so she could start renting it out as an AirBnB.
We got to talking to her and mentioned we were thinking of stopping over. She told us to stay over at her place while we were on the island. For free no less. So that made our decision extremely easy.
We decided to take the cars over because we weren’t going to pay anything for the accommodation. It made our lives quite a bit easier to be fair. We were able to cover almost every inch of the island.
The house itself is pretty nice. And she got it for a very good price too. This woman, Frankie is her name, is self-made. She moved to Australia over ten years ago on a working holiday and just stayed around, applying for all different types of visa along the way. Got her permanent residency and eventually her citizenship.
She is a graphic designer and built a multi-million dollar graphic design organization. She’s also been investing in real estate and converting her properties into rentals for a while now. We really had a great time with her. And we even helped out with the place where we could.
I was pleasantly surprised because most backpackers you talk to say something about wanting to go to Magnetic Island. You see a lot of advertisements for it too. But it’s not really all that touristy when you get there.
Perhaps COVID had something to do with it. But you can tell normally it doesn’t have that touristy feel to it. Not many restaurants, hotels, or hostels to be fair. But this place will blow up eventually. So this investment will probably work out quite nicely for Frankie.
Anyway, there’s not a whole lot to do on Magnetic Island as far as adventures go. There are a few hikes that you can do and there’s one 4WD track that was actually pretty gnarly. It’s very famous for its snorkeling. But it was extremely windy while we were there and the visibility is not good. The water is not calm and you can’t see much.
The most famous hike is called The Forts Hike because it takes you through various World War II bunkers and other buildings. Magnetic Island was heavily fortified during the early 1940s due to the threat of a Japanese invasion.
The best part about this hike was the koalas. We saw a few of them in the trees on the way. Maggie Island is famous for its koalas. It was my first time seeing one outside of the Australia Zoo. If you want to see a koala in the wild this is the place you want to visit.
The 4WD track, promptly called Radical Bay, was pretty damn radical. It was a road at some point in the past but it’s fallen into serious disrepair. Now it’s just potholes. It really looked like some just bombed the place. Alex’s car is an absolute unit though, so we made it through with no problem.
There wasn’t really much doing when we got to the end of the track. A beautiful beach, so we chilled there for the afternoon. I actually ran into a few friends from back in Byron Bay that hiked all the way to the cove. It really is amazing where you run into people in Australia.
There were a few small hikes around the track and we got some really cool pictures. Scott even found a beach with good enough waves for surfing. Normally, north Queensland doesn’t have good surf because of the coral reefs. But this spot had some pretty big waves.
All in all, Magnetic Island was a pretty relaxing time. Besides that, we just sat by the beach and had a ton of iced coffees. We found this one spot in Horseshoe Bay that made some pretty wicked ones. With ice cream and all. It was fairly addicting. Partly because they were so delicious and partly because there wasn’t much else to do besides sit by the beach and relax.