Scotties!! This is where we stayed! We were really fortunate, leaving Cairns with nowhere to stay, got off the bus in a pretty deserted area in pouring rain (it doesn’t ever rain here apparently), a guy with a board shouted Scotties, and we thought hey lets stay there! They had a room, we were happy! This turned out to be a really good stay, Scotties was great, really backpackery but in a good way, met lots of people, planned the whole of our trip in Australia with the help of Vicki working there (she really planned it all for us with a little of our help!) We walked to the supermarket in scorching sun to pick up food for the next couple of days, past a mile long beach which was absolutely stunning, but due to Stinger season you cant go anywhere near the sea without the necessary suit on, seriously frustrating!! Played volleyball in the sea, and had galdiator duals on the log that crosses the pool! Met 3 great girls from the uk too. Next day it rained, a lot, most of the day! We tried to make it to the beach but 20seconds in the rain fell and we sat under a shelter for half hour! We then retreated at the first sign of a gap! We really enjoyed our time at Scotties, relaxed knowing that all our plans were sorted and enjoyed staying somewhere fun for a couple of days!
9.15 we got the bus to Townsville! Got the boat over to Magnetic Island and then got the local bus to Bungalow Bay! It’s called Magnetic Island as it made Captain Cook’s compass go crazy when he sailed past it and so didnt stop, and it was put down to magnetism. He missed out! We stayed on the north easterly point where the best beaches were accessible by ‘short’ walks, and where we stayed was set in a wildlife reserve, and so accordingly, we saw PLENTY! will get to that later!
We headed straight to the closest beach which had a stinger net, YAY!!! which meant we were able to get into the sea without covered head to toe in a suit!!! It doesn’t take much to make us happy! Beach was nice, but not wow, and so knowing the best of the island were ‘just around the corner’ we decided to go there the next day. We picked up some food at the super expensive supermarket! That night we had…. Mediterranean chicken with rice, sounds nice, didn’t taste so great! The wildlife on the other hand was impressive! There were 2 super cute possums sitting right by us, munching on a mango, a strange bird that looked similar to a heron wandering around and giant bats flying overhead!
We went down to the bar to cash in our free jug of beer that came with the room! Saw the girls from Scotties there and signed ourselves up for the nights biggest event – Coconut Bowling! We were at the very end of a very long list and neither of us fancied our chances! If you knocked down the middle skittle you got a free glass of beer and the winner got a $30 bar tab! I was first up and knocked down 5! That was the high score!!! Super happy as normally need the barriers up when bowling haha so stamp on hand, and currently the winner of the $30 bar tab! James was up next, go 1…. missed, go 2… missed, go 3 (given free as they felt bad he hadn’t hit one)…. score!!!! 7 SKITTLES and another free glass of beer!! Needless to say there were only a couple of people left after us and we won, very happily! So we spent the rest of the night sharing the beer out with the girls playing many different varieties of card games!! Went to bed with money in the kitty for drinks tomorrow, perfect!
We had booked ourselves onto bushtuckers breakfast which was reduced in price due to low numbers that day, perfect!! It was an amazing breakfast pancakes, bacon, sausages, everything you could want, plus surrounded by koala bears (2….) and a friendly parrot (to everyone but me!) And a slightly not so friendly/disturbed white parrot! While tucking into breakfast we got to see and touch a crocodile and snake! The food was unbelievable and we all stuffed ourselves full getting every pennies worth to last us til dinner! Last up was the chance to hold a Koala, which I did, a super big cuddly one and got my picture taken! It was very cute!!
By the time we managed to move ourselves properly again it was getting close to midday and so we headed off to the coastal walk round to the other beaches! Even by the time we got to the end of the beach we got distracted with amazing sand dunes at low tide. We headed onto the track and pretty quickly started going up hill! This was bad, very very bad haha we made it to the top though and the rest was downhill, which was much much better! Overwhelmed by heat didnt notice much around us, (no snakes, no spiders!) and an hour after leaving we made it to the beach, it was worth the sweat! Stinger suits in hand sea was our immediate beacon! After, of course, taking the necessary pictures! The beach was beautiful, it was completely secluded, we were the only people on it and we stayed for as long as possible, bearing in mind the walk back wouldnt be too safe in the dark! On the way back, far more chilled out we noticed so many more things, saw a Wallaby, noticed a whole part of the forest that must of been on fire pretty recently, lots of rustling under the leaves, a chicken and lots of little lizards! Upon reaching the bottom of the ‘hill’ it was hard not to notice the river that had formed in front of us! What was about an inch deep was a good 2metres! Thankfully we spotted 2 women getting into a little boat further up so we ran to get a lift off them, only to find these little boats that were attached to a piece of rope were the normal method of transport to get yourself back and forth at high tide! You just hopped in, unclipped the boat from the rope, pulled the boat along by the rope, hopped out the other side and clipped it back on that side, so simple, but so not obvious! Don’t want to think how long it would have taken to figure that out ourselves! Or at least that we weren’t stealing someone else’s boat!
We’d had a really great day, and so topped it off with a good old uni favourite – vegetable curry! This went down very well and we continued the night with the rest of the bar tab, beer, wine and card games! Wish we could of stayed longer…. well maybe a day longer hehe
Best of Mission beach pictures can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsbeenemotional/sets/72157622835790837/
Best of Magnetic Island pictures can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsbeenemotional/sets/72157622835840901/
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