Scooting around Maggie

We’ve just spent four days on Magnetic Island (affectionately known as Maggie), which is my favourite place on the east coast of Australia. 

As is now tradition, a bus journey report. Good news, everything went smoothly! Although when I got to my hostel in Maggie, one of my dorm mates told me the story of her bus journey. It turns out the driver hadn’t closed the  luggage door, and lots of luggage fell out and was subsequently ran over by a lorry. The photo she showed me was just carnage. Her luggage was destroyed which isn’t exactly great when you are travelling. 

Maggie is a fairly large island, the first one I’ve been to that has actual tarmac roads. There is a bus to get around, but it’s not very frequent, so most people hire cars and scooters. Given the volume of car hires, I think the locals have started to have fun with the types of car they let. 

This is known as the barbie car (or BBQ car as we eventually called it), but I hate to disappoint you, we didn’t hire one. They are very expensive, are a bit crap, and quite hard to get hold of. Instead, I reunited with some of my Fraser Island group and we got a more sensible 4x4 to tour the island. 

There’s plenty to see here. The main attraction is the Fort lookout. It’s an old fort on top of a hill to look out from (obviously). We hiked to the top of this (yes! Finally I get to do some hiking in Australia!) and I decided to climb on its roof, probably not the safest thing to do. 

Next up was a visit to the rock wallabies, which you are allowed to feed. We grabbed a bag of carrots and off we went. Absolutely adorable!

The final stop was to watch the sunset at one of the many  recommended spots on the island. 

We then ended the night playing bingo at the only other hostel on the island. Sadly my days of winning £1,000 at the bingo seem to be over. When I came home, my hostel came to life. I call it a hostel but it’s more of a glamping site, but with random dormitories all over the place. It does mean you get to see some pretty cool wildlife on your doorstep. 

The next day, I decided to do the longest hike on the island, about 3 hours. Maggie is the best place I’ve been to so far in Australia. I’m guessing it’s because I can actually go hiking and have been able to drive again. 

Instead of walking back from the end of the hike, I decided to hire a scooter for 24 hours. I used this opportunity to go to every single spot on the island that was accessible by road. 

And it’s our final evening in Magnetic Island. They aren’t showing the coronation anywhere near here (to be fair there isn’t many options to watch it), so it’s going to be an early night. 

Tomorrow is a chilled day ready for what is to come the day after. We’ll head back to the main land to Townsville, go to the cinema to watch Guardians of the Galaxy, then have an early night. 

On Monday, we take a 27 hour bus to the centre of Australia, Alice Springs. Wish me luck!