Magnetic Island & Mission Beach, QLD, Australia

After spending one more day in Airlie Beach recovering from our Australia Day night out, we hopped back on the Greyhound bus and headed for Townsville, only 4 hours away. Townsville is the 2nd largest township in Queensland after Brisbane and is also the gateway city for Magnetic Island - a 25 minute ferry ride.

A small tropical island, known for its relaxed atmosphere and also being the largest koala sanctuary in Austalia. A part of the Great Barrier Reef is located quite close to the shore on Magnetic Beach, so Sarah and I hired our snorkels, stinger suits (deadly stingers are around this time of year...) and flippers and headed out to the reef again on Alma Bay in search for weird & wonderful sealife. The day was quite overcast which meant the colours of the coral were not as clear as they had been on the Whitsunday Islands, and so we were a little disappointed with this little snorkelling adventure. Still, undefeated we set about planning our next day - hiring a 4x4 to go explore the island.

And then.... the rain came, and it came, and it came!!!! We hired a 4x4 hopefully to get to West Point to check out the sunset that evening, however, what we thought would be a quick downpour followed by blue skies turned into torrential rain for the entire day. We still took the 4x4 out for a spin, however, within 15 minutes you have completed a circuit of the island... A fun day out though, with plenty of time to go looking for rock wallabies, of which there are many.

As the rain continued to fall we were glad to leave the island and head for Mission Beach, a 3 hour drive and hopefully leave the rain behind. Erm.... that was just the beginning! The whole of the North of the East Coast was bucketting down (and still is...), with road floodings and overspilling rivers! The sea is turning brown where creeks are washing out all its debris and crocodiles are being found on beaches where they have found their way out of creeks!

Mission Beach has tiny settlements stretched out along the beach from Wongaling, to South Mission to Bengil Bay, along 12 km of beach. Mission Beach however, did not look like the idyllic beach on the postcards with its palm fringed coastline, as the downpours made sure of that and so the only entertainment we had was a pack of cards and er... drinking games with fellow hostel mates.

Our 2nd day was a little better, and so we took the ferry over to Dunk Island, 4.5 km from Mission Beach via ferry. Full of birdlife & butterflies, we were looking forward to getting there and taking a rainforest walk up to Mount Kootaloo. 271 metres high and a 5.6 km walk along a gentle ascend we reach our summit which brought us magnificent views over the Family Islands including Bendarra Island, an exclusive resort afforded only by the more wealthier folk.

Due to the rain, roads were still flooded and so Greyhound stopped all services up and down the coast. Our only option out of Mission Beach was to ditch out Greyhound bus pass for our final East Coast leg, and book a small shuttle bus 2 hours up to Cairns. Good choice made by Sarah and I as we are still hearing stories of people being stranded and not being able to get to their next destination. For us though... final stop on the East Coast, the adventure & party capital of Cairns!!! Bring on the White Water Rafting, Bungy Jumping and partying...