Muddle Through Memoirs

A more chilled week in Magnetic Island and Mission Beach

Undeniably, the elephant in the room is the 3 week gap between posts on here. I can only say I was experiencing the natural ups and downs of solo travel. It’s often really rough and lonely and that’s just as much worth remembering as all the times I was having brilliant fun. Nevertheless, I’m hopefully getting back on the horse now so should hopefully be able to get a bit caught up.
This gorgeous sunset is from my first night on Magnetic Island.

To the amusement of pretty much everyone I told, my accommodation on Magnetic Island, through a result of unfortunate timing (Easter holidays), limited choice of hostels on the island, and late-ish booking, was a very expensive “glamping” experience also known as 4 single beds jammed into a renovated school bus. To my great relief this actually turned out to be a really lovely accommodation nestled between the trees and stream at the Selina hostel resort. One of the great draws of Selina is the daily free bird feeding experience. We attended on my first day and it was a really fun, if slightly chaotic, experience. The resort is home to hundred of rainbow lorikeets who descended as soon as the first hint of food appeared and had no qualms about climbing all over us, including hopping up on peoples hats.

On my first morning on the island I had booked the ‘Breakfast with the Koalas’ option at the hostel’s own wildlife park, the cost of which I mostly justified as it was a good way to get some cute pictures for my niece. It was definitely an overpriced option, as the food was certainly mid, but the small group animal encounters were really lovely, as were the knowledgeable keepers who brought the animals out to see us.
First out was the undeniable star of the show, a sweet and sleepy little Koala who came around to see us whilst we ate before heading to her enclosure for her own eucalyptus snack. Then came a very friendly and flirtatious red-tailed cockatoo who squawked any time we forgot to pay him more attention the other critters. After that they brought out Drogo the bearded dragon and a python for us to hold. The final animal was Harry, the sweet, (not so) little orphaned wombat who sat in the keeper’s lap like a wriggly toddler.

The famous hike to do on Magnetic Island is the Forts Walk and takes approximately 4 hours to complete. By this point of the trip I was fairly hiked-out and the sweltering heat of the day convinced me that, particularly as I’d be on my own, I could actually do without this experience. The walk is a really great way to see koalas in the wild, but as I’ve been lucky enough to see a couple in the wild before I wasn’t too stressed about it.
Instead I decided to hike to the Sphynx lookout, a less travelled route through fairly dense bush, still very steep and challenging, but mercifully shorter. The lookout provided a pretty great view of the island and though I nearly lost my life jumping out of my skin at the sight of the world’s largest spider (hanging from a web less than an inch from my face) it was well worth my effort.
On the way back down I stumbled across the Endeavour Falls, an off the beaten track little gem which offered a quiet place to cool off and catch my breath. On the way back down the hill I was faced with yet another trial as the strap of my highly unflattering walking sandals betrayed me and snapped nearly causing some fit of acrobatics for which I was thoroughly unprepared. I can’t say I was sorry to see them go.

Despite vowing to spit in the face of any more hiking in the heat, I did actually psych myself up to keep going and ambled at a more relaxed pace along the coastal walk of the island and back in time for dusk at Geoffrey Bay. The rocky cliffs and caves of the bay are the home to the famous Maggie Island rock wallabies. The general rule with national park spaces or encountering wildlife in their natural habitat is not to feed or attempt to touch them and, unfortunately, this does seem to go out the window on Magnetic Island. Hundreds of tourists descend on the rocks armed with carrots or apples to try to coax the wallabies out. This is wholly unnecessary and also proven to be damaging for the animals, who become reliant on the tourists and lose their natural instincts. Instead I found a spot in one of the caves, tucked myself up on one of the rocks and just sat quietly and patiently and sure enough out came many wallabies (including some very adorable babies) who hopped around me quite happily but would scatter when the crowds descended and tried to get selfies. This is a really iconic tourist spot, and a lovely way to connect with the island’s wildlife, but I do wish that people would have a bit more respect for the animals themselves rather than being focused only on what will get them the best pictures for instagram. Rant over, here are some such cute pictures.

My penultimate stop on this East Coast spectacular was Mission Beach, a quiet but lovely place to reset after the manic pace of travel. The biggest draw of this stop was the hostel, called the Jackaroo Treehouse, and the Bingil Bay Cafe a short walk away, both run by such friendly people that you felt a part of the community as soon as you arrived.

That’s all for now, but I’ll do my best to get back on a better schedule since there have been plenty more adventures since!