Maggie Island!

Yesterday a bunch of us spent the day at Maggie Island.  Magnetic Island is a 15 minute ferry from Townsville and a very popular place for people from the city to go.  I can understand why because it is absolutely gorgeous there.  It is a very very quiet and relaxed place, and it has loads of awesome beaches, rainforest mountains, and coral reefs.  

It actually looks like a brochure you would look at for some tropical island paradise.  It reminds me a lot of Acadia National Park in Maine if you replace all of the pine trees with rainforest and palms, and the rocky coast of Maine with white sand beaches and crystal clear water with reefs.

They have a ton of hiking trails so we started off by getting on one of those to see where it took us.  You can actually walk from one end of the island to the other if you have enough time and are motivated enough.  We first stopped in a place called Geoffrey Bay because it looked like there was a reef a ways out and we wanted to check it out.  Three of us ended swimming out there with mask and snorkels and the coral was amazing.  In like 6 feet of water there was reef covering the entire bottom so it was right under us.  It was so incredible.  Unfortunately it was "choppy" (barely any waves so I can't even imagine how calm it is when there is no wind) so the visibility was not good at all and we didn't stay out too long.  We talked to

 a guy at a dive shop though and he said usually the vis is around 50 feet so we'll definitely be back to check it out again.  He also showed us all of the best bays for snorkeling on reefs that are on the island and pointed out some shipwreck locations you can get to from shore so I'm excited to explore some more.

After the reef we chilled at some other beaches in the different bays.  We then ended up doing a lot more hiking and took a trail called the forts which goes around to a bunch of old WW2 gun posts, observation towers, and things like that.  Really cool and the views were amazing.  Magnetic Island also has the largest population of koalas in the north and we ended up seeing one.  After the hiking and the scenic overlooks we ended up at Horseshoe Bay which is the best place to watch the sunset.  We hung out there all night and did some swimming and barbecuing on the beach.  I was glad to finally be able to see what all the hubub was about the island and I can't wait to get back out there again.  

View of Townsville from the ferry out to the island

Geoffrey Bay

We found echidnas!  They are really goofy, you can't see it in this picture but their feet are backwards.  They are the only monotreme (egg laying mammal) in the world besides the platypus.

Alma Bay

These birds are all over the place and are awesome looking.  They are ridiculously loud at night.  I still haven't figured out what kind they are.  

Found a bat in one of the forts

 It was about as big as my palm.  

Florence Bay I believe

I found a cuttlebone from a cuttlefish while we were snorkeling.  Pretty cool.  The dive shop said it was one of the bigger ones they have seen.

Sunset at Horseshoe Bay

Panoramic view from the forts overlook

Panoramic of Horseshoe Bay