How many times can you get off a ferry, jump on a bus and see your first wild koala within 10 minutes of being on the island?
I think we were really lucky, and the lovely bus driver even pulled over so we could get a good look and a couple of photos.
Magnetic Island is around 52 sq km in size and has a population of around 2200 people (my home, Jersey, is 120 sq km and has around 110,000 residents). The island lies around 8km from Townsville on the mainland. The majority of the island is national park.
We settled into our hostel after a long day of travel and spent the evening planning what to do on our only full day. We arranged to hire a car with our new friend which we would pick up in the morning. After dinner and a chat, we all headed to bed for a restful sleep before a busy day.
After picking up our hire car we drove to our first stop, Bungalow Bay Koala Park. We were going on a guide tour of the park and this cost us around $45 each. Our guide showed us around, introducing us to various animals they had at the park. This is an interactive tour so we had the option of touching the animals starting with a freshwater turtle. We then had the option of holding Shadow, a red-tailed black cockatoo. This was huge for me, I have a massive phobia of birds but I did it, I held Shadow (until he squawked and then I was done). I then held a python and felt fine. We also got to stroke a wombat (they are huge!) and a baby saltwater crocodile (very cute). We continued the tour around the park, getting up close to skinks, echidnas and of course, koalas. We were at the park for around 1.5 hours and had the best time. The guide was so informative and the interactions with animals was all done safely and educationally.
Our next stop was The Forts for a hike. This took us around 2-2.5 hours (with photo, wildlife spotting and drink stops) and the hike is around 4km return. Along the hike, we saw ruins of WW2 fortifications (hence the name of the hiking trail, The Forts) and incredible views. We also some a few geckos and our first wild rock wallaby. One the way back to the car, we saw 2 wild koalas in the trees.
Our final stop of the day was to feed wild rock wallabies. We had passed a friend of ours at the Koala Park earlier in the day and she had given us her leftover “Roo” food pellets. We walked along the road and down to the rocks where the wallabies live. There were loads of them and one of the wallabies had a tiny joey in her pouch. Holding out hands of food, the wallabies approached us and ate straight out of our hands, often holding onto our hands with their paws. A great (and cute) experience.
After a long day, we went back to the hostel, got dinner and chilled out for the evening. The next day we had to catch the ferry back to the mainland to get our coach to the next destination.
Thanks for reading!
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