After a couple of weeks in the Blue Mountains; drinking, barbecuing, walking, swimming, and meeting plenty of new people – I had the urge to go and meet some familiar people again; Friends that had become the most significant aspect of my memories of my first year in Australia, but who I hadn’t seen in twelve long (cold) months.
It helped that the setting I had in mind was a tropical island in North Queensland. There’s something about remoteness that I think consolidates a community, brings people out of their shell and encourages friendships to become very strong very quickly. Maybe I’m just being overly-sentimental, but the friendships I made in six weeks living on Magnetic Island made such a huge difference to my time in Australia. The send-off party we had when we left was the most surprising event of all – with all sorts of people coming out to wish us bon voyage, and I was eager to get back and see them all.
I arrived at Townsville airport not long before Matt arrived back from his latest stint in the mines. When I moved out of my room on the Island Matt moved in, and I was looking forward to spending some time catching up whilst I stayed with him and Anthony, and Matt’s better half Jenna. I say ‘better half’ because I very quickly found out that Jenna was not only outside the airport waiting to take us to the Island in her ute, but she was also going to be stopping off at the bottle-shop to fill the back with lovely cold beers and as many boxes of wine as we could carry out of the shop!
The next few days were spent wandering between bars along the bay front; starting the days with bloody Mary’s and following them with jug after jug of margaritas in Noodies On The Beach, then after a plate of nachos maybe we’d head down to The Marlin Bar for a couple of jugs of beer and a steak, then back to Noodies. There’s not a lot of choice on that corner of the island, but when you have plenty of sun, good company and the bar owner insists on putting a sombrero on your head to commemorate your commitment to cocktails, you can’t really find fault with life. It’s just a great place to while away the days. There were lots of people I wanted to catch up with, and you could guarantee most of them would wander by at some point. So it was mainly outside these bars that I was able to catch up with old friends and make a few new ones as well.
After a week I went to stay with two other wonderful friends, Ally and Danielle, who came over from England a couple of years ago and have been living on the island ever since. Their house is in an amazing setting. Practically opening out into a currently completely parched lagoon, you can sit on the veranda on one side of the house and see lush rainforest trees and plants in any direction, see a dozen different coloured dragon flies around the pond, the sunbird nesting next to the porch door, hear the koalas grumbling in the trees, and the wallabies bounding across the neighbouring gardens.
A new addition to their family is Juno, a little Jack Russell / Papillon with as much character as he has energy and boldness! I learnt very quickly that if you throw him a ball or a bottle-top you will have a friend for life. And he was incessant! I don’t think there was a single occasion where he tired before my arm and my patience! And next door is Natalie who we partied with plenty of times when we lived together a year ago, and who now lives with, amongst others, Juno’s sister Phoebe. Lots of fun was to be had with the two dogs, especially when splashing them from Natalie’s pool and watching the pair of them try everything possible to get the balls out of the pool short of going in themselves. Strange creatures.
The island is full of other strange animals too, and I suppose I couldn’t leave them out of any discussion about the personalities that draw me to the island. There is my favourite spider on the island: the golden orb weaver. A huge and elegant looking arachnid with bright golden bands around its knees, not particularly venomous, but you would certainly notice its fangs sinking into your skin! There are also a couple of species of bat on the island, the large fruit bats which can be heard swooping over head or screeching in the trees where they roost, and a smaller bat which likes to hide in the eaves of old abandoned buildings such as an old gun entrenchments or powder store up on the hill. Also up there are the always fascinating koalas. It’s not uncommon to see them on the island as it houses the largest wild colony of the animals of an estimated 300. The ones that stand out from this visit where a pair I found sitting half way up a tree, and managed to get very close to. I climbed up the cliff face and sat on a rock so I was head height with the mother and four or five-month old Joey, and spent the best part of an hour just sitting and watching. The baby was fascinated by me, but the mother wasn’t so sure. She would steer him away with a firm hand on his shoulders until he was round the other side of the tree branch, but the cheeky little one would clamber and wriggle and sneak round until he could sit and watch me again. Eventually the mother gave up trying to stop him, and they both sat there nibbling on leaves whilst I watched and enjoyed their sedentary company.
I spent some time with other animals as well, which I hadn’t really considered when I was there before: the island’s horses. Danielle was working on a ranch, so one day I joined her and the other workers on a ride out across the island. I hadn’t been on a horse for many years, and think I was probably less than graceful as I struggled to make the beast move, or stop, or just try and hold on without getting too injured in the process. It was certainly a couple of days before I could sit down comfortably afterwards! I’m sure there must be a better design for a saddle, one which takes the male anatomy into consideration; or maybe I just need to learn how to sit in it properly.
It was a great way to see the island, going down a few tracks I hadn’t seen before and then arriving at the end of the long Horseshoe bay beach and pelting down it clinging on to my horse and desperately trying to steer him away from the trees with low branches he seemed intent on trying to brain me with. After the run, we cooled off in the sea, riding our swimming horses bare-back, listening to them snorting and playing in the surf and dodging the occasionally floating accident.
A couple of nights later we were all back down that end of the beach, sitting round a huge fire – drinking, dancing, fire spinning and celebrating. Day or night, the beach is a great place to relax and so it was with a modicum of inebriation I spent another great night on the island with my friends.
I hope you like the photos I took on this visit to Magnetic Island
Tags: animals, Australia, birds, friends, koalas, Magnetic Island, spiders, Travel, tropical island