Hello Maggie

Magnetic Island — aka Maggie — is not in Darwin, or even in the Territory. It's in Queensland, about 1800 km away from Darwin as the crow (or plane) flies. It's a two-and-a-half hour flight to Townsville, then an 8 km / 20 minute ferry trip to Maggie.

This is Nelly Bay, where the ferry docks on the island.

We had a week's break on Maggie. It's a fairly big island, about 50 sq km, but most of it is national park and basically inaccessible.

The seawater temperature was a wonderful 29.5 °C. The daily air temperature when we were there was around 29 °C — signficantly cooler than Darwin's 34 °C but still very pleasantly warm. Less humid than Darwin, too.

Saltwater crocs are found in North Queensland, but are very uncommon around Magnetic Island. So we didn't need to worry about salties. On the other hand, NQ waters are renowned for irukandji and box jellyfish in summer, which are just as deadly if somewhat smaller. The answer is to swim where there are stinger nets or to wear stinger suits.

Horseshoe Bay and Picnic Bay have stinger nets. No dogs allowed in the stinger nets, but we enjoyed watching a cattle dog chasing a coconut husk in the water just outside the nets. The Queensland spin on throwing a ball for your dog ...

Magnetic Island is full of beautiful small bays lined with rocky granite outcrops, but it's also full of substantial hills. So cycling is not a great option. To stay active, we decided to tackle the walk from Nelly Bay to Arcadia. This walk (ha! hike!) is deemed to be 6.4 km but felt like 64 km. The trail climbs up to the ridge, then progresses along the saddle of the ridge. Up and down along the saddle ridge. It may have been picturesque, but it was hard work.

The last photo is of Horseshoe Bay, where most of the watersports activities take place. We did a sunset kayak tour from Horseshoe one evening. We paddled out to White Lady Bay, a cove within Horseshoe. Can you see the 'white lady' below? This madonna-like rock is white from guano. This area used to be an oyster-producing area but is now a marine research site.

Turtles are prevalent on Maggie; as we kayaked, we could see the odd turtle head pop up out of the water. Our Aboriginal guide was technically excellent (helping us kayak novices) as well as very knowledgable about the Wulgurukaba culture and history of the region. The Kiwi couple who joined us on the tour endeared themselves to me immediately by asking, 'Can this be a slow tour?'

What was not a slow tour was our jet ski tour, also out of Horseshoe Bay. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The plan was that we would explore Five Beach Bay, with its (surprise!) five beaches that are inaccessible from land, and we'd also see Balding Bay and Radical Bay from the ocean. What hadn't dawned on me, until it was too late, was that the tour was also heading out to sea for 4 km. I liked the tour along the coastline. Of the trip out to the choppy sea, the less said the better.

Let's leave the painful memories (thump thump thump THUMP thump) and go back up the hill. We're still looking down from the ridge, but now into Alma Bay. Alma Bay is an extremely picturesque swimming area. No stinger nets but somehow this does not present a problem to the populace, or indeed to us. Highly recommended for a morning on the beach: shady trees, a café across the road, easy access by bus.

Maggie has an excellent bus service across the island. However, Ken was entranced by the topless cars. So we hired one for a day and explored the island in this ridiculous vehicle. The speed limit on Maggie is 60 km/h, which this car just managed. Uphill? Second gear required.

On the wildlife side, Maggie is well known for its rock wallaby population. Some of them are semi-tame — they're used to being fed by their adoring public. Guidelines are very strict: carrots, apples and sweet potatoes are good; grapes, cauliflower and broccoli are bad. On the bird front, we saw white-bellied sea eagles (as we did in Bamurru), brahminy kites and masked lapwings (as we do in Darwin), plenty of kookaburras (as we do everywhere) ...

... but our special bird-watching treat was the osprey that landed its fishy catch about 1.5 m from us on the beach. It sat there nonchalantly holding the fish on the sand while the fish flopped and flapped, but once the fish had (mostly) expired, the osprey started to eat it from the head down.

The silver gulls were besides themselves with anticipation. One brave gull kept making little forays towards the meal, but most waited until the osprey departed with its half-eaten fish before zooming in for the scraps.

Have you noticed the very distinctive hoop pines? They grow among the granite outcrops next to the sea; many are blown out of shape by the sea winds. These small rocky bays in Maggie lend themselves to snorkelling. Much of the coastline is national park so there's no fishing allowed, which means that there are plenty of fish to see.

The Great Barrier Reef is further east (a couple of hours out to sea) but these islands have their own fringing reef. Snorkelling around Maggie doesn't reach the heights of the GBR but the fringing reef is easily accessible and snorkelling is pleasant and comfortable. Here we are in the obligatory (OHS) stingersuits, plus the recommended pool noodle.

Balding Bay is the island's nudist beach. Is it just me or is that an unfortunate name for a nudist beach? I inadvertently (yes, honestly) snapped a photo from the snorkelling boat. Sorry, man on the right of the photograph almost-but-not-quite hidden behind the rocks.

I'm sure you're wondering, Why is Magnetic Island called Magnetic Island? No, it's not some marketing ploy by Tourism Queensland. Maggie was named by Captain James Cook in 1770 when he sailed up the east coast of Australia. He referred to it as a 'magnetical island' because his compass behaved strangely as he sailed past these very rocks.

No evidence of weird magnetism has ever been found but the name stuck. (Locals reckon it was a can of sauerkraut that was near Cook's compass that caused the aberration.)

What better than to end this long post with some real relaxation? We made good use of two of the four pools in our very pleasant accommodation. That's Townsville aka real life in the distance. Cheers, Maggie.