Destination Townsville and Maggie Island

Good news, the car is quite speedy. Bad news, the police stopped us for doing 125km in a 100km limit and issued a very swift $250 fine. Shame it was Will driving and not me or else I’d have given him a quick flash and been on my way….always works!

I know I was in Townsville with Lucia in 1993, but I don’t recognise it at all. A lot of the buildings seem very new and we’re once again in a Rydges hotel, firstly in one of their gorgeous apartments and then in a hotel room. Palmer Street is full of bars and restaurants and we manage our first “late” night out with the kids when they manage to stay awake over a tapas dinner until 10pm. Woo-hoo!

We’re only an 8km, 40 minute ferry ride to Magnetic Island where we’re booked into the Island Leisure Resort, Nelly Bay (www.islandleisure.com.au). A tiny island where everyone drives around in Mini Mokes for the 9km journey from Picnic Bay in the south to Horseshoe Bay in the north. The kids happily play across the road at the playground, backing onto the beach, whilst we have some dinner and watch the sunset (one eye on them too, of course!).

It’s a very beautiful island made of giant granite boulders, some teetering precariously above you as you make your way down dusty little tracks to a deserted beach. Half of the island is national park and it boasts the largest number of koalas found in the wild in Queensland, so we spend a lot of time peering into the trees looking for grey fuzzy bums.

Having failed to spot any, we take a visit to the Koala Park where, apart from the obvious, you can hold crocs (complete with taped shut mouths, which gives me an idea…) and even a huge python. Harley impresses me by having the snake (three times the size of him) draped around his body. Only 2 months since we went to the Snake Pit in Cambodia and he refused to even stroke a snake. This trip is definitely making both Harley and Ruby more confident.

We’re on such good terms with Rydges now that we get an email from Townsville letting us know that they found our passports in the drawer when we left. Thank god for emails.