Stop 14 - Townsville/Magnetic Island
Another couple of hours of driving brought us to Townsville, the capital of Tropical North Queensland where we stayed for 3 nights. Townsville is much the same as many of the other locations we've visited i.e Mackay, Rockhampton etc etc - just another town but nice at the same time.
One of our reasons for stopping in Townsville was to visit the so-called "tropical island paradise" called Magnetic Island, which is not only supposed to be like paradise, but also be Australias biggest natural Koala bear habitat. After a 20 minute ferry ride we arrived on Magnetic Island where nature greeted us by opening the skies and chucking it down for much of the morning. Magnetic Island itself was a fairly small island made up of 4 main parts. After visiting all of these, neither of us were too impressed with what the island had to offer, especially the stinger enclosures which we took one look at and decided we definitely weren't going swimming in them!! Basically they offer very little protection against the deadly jellies present this time of year!!
Luckily come the afternoon the sun came out and we went for a spot of wildlife spotting through the bush. You've guessed it, we went in search of wild koalas!! Worryingly, this island is also meant to be home to the deadly death addar snake!!! Fortunately we didn't come across any snakes but surprisingly enough, we did manage to spot one rather friendly koala bear sitting low down in the tree and literally about 1 metre from us!!!! Unfortunately he didn't greet us with a "g'day mate", but he did manage a good few poses for the camera!!
One of our reasons for stopping in Townsville was to visit the so-called "tropical island paradise" called Magnetic Island, which is not only supposed to be like paradise, but also be Australias biggest natural Koala bear habitat. After a 20 minute ferry ride we arrived on Magnetic Island where nature greeted us by opening the skies and chucking it down for much of the morning. Magnetic Island itself was a fairly small island made up of 4 main parts. After visiting all of these, neither of us were too impressed with what the island had to offer, especially the stinger enclosures which we took one look at and decided we definitely weren't going swimming in them!! Basically they offer very little protection against the deadly jellies present this time of year!!
Luckily come the afternoon the sun came out and we went for a spot of wildlife spotting through the bush. You've guessed it, we went in search of wild koalas!! Worryingly, this island is also meant to be home to the deadly death addar snake!!! Fortunately we didn't come across any snakes but surprisingly enough, we did manage to spot one rather friendly koala bear sitting low down in the tree and literally about 1 metre from us!!!! Unfortunately he didn't greet us with a "g'day mate", but he did manage a good few poses for the camera!!
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