So we arrived and found ourselves, right on the water’s edge with a lovely quiet beach all the hostel's own and so began to settle in; spending the rest of the day dozing in hammocks, on the beach or just in our assigned hut chilling out.
We decided the next day to go snorkelling and so, kitted out with stinger suits, snorkels, masks and flippers headed out to where we had been informed there was a wreck that we could snorkel around in one of the nearby bays. Arriving there, not only did we indeed spot the wreck, but there were also some wallabies that were obviously used to being fed, so much so, in fact, that there was a pile of plant leaves and grasses in the middle of the little area they were all gathered around. Now, that had either been conveniently collected by them or, left there by the previous snorkelers and as such it seemed rude to break from convention, so Jon and Joe kitted out in stinger suits, flippers, snorkels, masks and ukulele set about feeding them. I’m not sure who was more confused; the wallabies or the tourist group that turned up half way through the feeding to admire the view and be told ‘there’s the wreck’. Either way, it made for some amazing photos:
The next day we headed up to the Northern end of the island and found ourselves winding up steeply (more on this later) over the ridge of hills that run the length of the island before dropping back down the other side towards the main beach of the island; Horseshoe Bay. Upon arriving, it was eminently clear why this was the main beach of the island, but that naturally meant it was a tad overcrowded, comparatively anyway. So, we backtracked up the road until we found ourselves at the col and took the turning off towards ‘Radical Bay’, a name that was just too appealing to pass up. After winding steeply down on a bumpy dirt track and then along the track under bush and jungle, we came out onto the completely isolated Bay. It was perfect, strewn with palm fronds, massive palm trees and a wide expanse of white sand, with rocks and rock pools at each end that could be explored at our leisure. To say that the rest of the day, certainly for my part, was spent doing little more than reading, sunbathing and doing diddly squat, would be no word of a lie. Bobby and a couple of the girls felt the need to climb the rocks and soon found themselves in that classic climbing paradox, the getting down is always harder than the getting up. Nonetheless, minus a couple of bruises and scrapes they were all fine. Ollie wandered off in the opposite direction and did much the same, requiring some solitude. While the rest of us were content to do nothing more than paddle in the water, explore the rock pools and eat the lunch we had brought with us.
By late afternoon, we decided to head back to our hostel, but, realising we had the jeeps until the morning, decided to go to West Point (not, I should add, the US Military Academy) for sunset. Having stopped back at the hostel, grabbed a jumper and changed out of our wet clothes, we piled back into the jeeps and headed out, with the dusk encroaching ever further, down yet another dirt track, this one entirely flat. After what seemed like a long and bumpy, but fun, drive, we found ourselves at West Point, with nothing for company but stone curlews, one retired Australian and Bobby’s guitar, we settled in for sunset. I have to say, this was a real highlight of the whole trip for me. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Not a breathtaking beauty like the Grand Canyon, or an imposing, omnipresent beauty like New Zealand’s landscape, but a quiet, understated and supremely peaceful beauty that is a rare thing in this day and age. We could have been at the end of the world (we were, almost) if we weren’t facing west towards the mainland. Regardless the sunset was something special, even though we were told ‘you ought to come back in the summer, the sunsets are much better then!’ by the aforementioned retired Australian, after he emerged from his evening swim. Eventually, after the sun had gone down, we had grown cold and bored we decided to head back but with this etched in our memories:
On our last day, we decided to spend it in a rather less active fashion. I elected to spend most of the day in a hammock reading or on the beach doing much the same. While Jon did likewise, until his restless nature took over and he had to go off up to a view point to expend some energy. Bobby and Ollie, however, decided to hire bikes from the hostel, which, it should be stated in advance, were in a pretty bad way and cycle large parts of the islands road network. Not least, the road we had driven previously; the steep one. No prizes for guessing what happened. Ollie fell off, mangled his hands, knees, elbow and shoulder and had to be cleaned up by yours truly. Once he was patched up, we took stock of ourselves. Bobby and I had managed to injure ourselves playing bar Olympics (wheelbarrow = eyebrow death for Bobby and blind folded stool pushing = knee death for me. We both still have the scars to prove it), Ollie had mangled himself spectacularly, which just left Jon. Rather than any physical damage, Jon and I damaged our pride somewhat in order to win the dance competition (it had a prize of $250 worth of hostel vouchers!!), I won’t say how, but thankfully it paid off!
On a less dubious note, Magnetic Island is definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me and is undoubtedly somewhere I would urge everyone and anyone who visits the East Coast of Australia to visit. We left Magnetic Island with many fond memories of a visit long extended and with various other memories, some painful, most hilarious. It won’t be the last time, not for me anyway.
