Magnetic Island
Our three days on Maggie have kept us busy with long
walks ashore and a day out sailing. Last
time we were here, a little over two weeks ago, we set out to walk from our
anchorage in Horseshoe Bay around to Radical Bay, but were prevented by a bush hazard
reduction burn in the area. It seemed appropriate
then that we should spend our first day here doing that same walk, although we
ended up extending it to walk to all four beaches on the north-east corner of
the island. This “Four Bay walk” took in
Balding, Radical, Florence and Arthur Bays. The character of the bush was, not surprisingly,
exactly the same as we saw on the Forts walk, but each beach proved to be
somewhat varied.
Several yachts were anchored in Radical Bay for lunch,
one of which was another Catalina 400, which I always like to see. This is apparently a popular luncheon spot for local yachties, and certainly it's a very pretty place to drop your anchor. Being exposed to the south easterly wind and swell makes it unsuitable for an overnighter.
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| Arthur Bay. Hiking up and down between the beaches and lookouts such as this made for a good walk. |
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| Like all of Maggie, rock formations at Florence Bay are like works of art |
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| Radical Bay |
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| We walked through sections of the backburn that had closed the track on our last visit |
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| There's estimated to be many hundreds of koalas on the island - we saw this one along the track |
The walk proved to be a good workout, partially because access to a
couple of the beaches involved steep slopes over rocky terrain, both down and
then back up. We ended up back at the
Horseshoe Bay tavern after about a four hour excursion, and had lunch there before going
back to the boat.
The weather is simply perfect up here and in the absence
of anything else to do we spent our second day taking the boat out for a
leisurely sail. This became a training
session for James on how to steer a boat upwind, something we’ve not really had
to face on the cruise so far. We met up
with John and Jo on Verve, who have just made it up from Sydney in time to do
the Magnetic Island Race Week in a couple of days.
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| I think I'm getting nostalgic. I only took this photo because it will be the last one we see from the boat at Magnetic Island. |
On our third day we decided to take the local bus
service to the southern most point on the island, at Picnic Bay, and to walk
back 6km to Arcadia, the site of the cane toad races from our previous
visit. We ended up lengthening the walk
by inadvertently hiking out and back to a lovely lookout over Picnic Bay. Not to worry – we got the best views of the
day.
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| Looking northwards towards Nelly and Alma Bays |
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| Picnic Bay and beyond to Townsville and the mainland |
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| From the lookout over Picnic Bay, this sea eagle wasn't so much higher than us |
We passed through Nelly Bay which seems to serve as
the centre of activity on the island.
This is where the mainland ferry arrives and where locals and tourists are
being funnelled on almost a continuous basis.
By chance we met up with Leon, Nirvana, John and Jo and joined them for
lunch in one of the cafes just off the small marina. Then it was back to our walk and a return to
Horseshoe Bay by bus. We arranged to see
John and Jo again for closing drinks ashore at the tavern and then it was down
to the business of preparing the boat for the return to Townsville.
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