The drive to Townsville was a simple run down the Bruce Highway, parallel with the coast, but we couldn’t linger anywhere too long as we had to return the car by 15:30. At Cardwell the road ran along the foreshore – there was no beach as the tide was in, but there were nice views of mountainous Hinchinbrook Island.
At lunchtime we turned off down to the beach at Toolakea – yet another example of a beautiful, deserted white strand. Queensland does do an exceptional line in beaches. As we were eating our cold pizza at the picnic table, we were joined by a couple in their 70s who had gathered an armful of driftwood. They were ceramic artists from Townsville, but they had lived all over Australia and had previously farmed macadamia nuts in Toolakea, until they were wiped out by two cyclones.
At the Orchid Guest House we emptied the car before driving back out towards the airport to the rather inconveniently located Europcar office. But at least it was on a bus route, so we got a cheap tour of the town on the way back. The bus dropped us on Sturt Street, and we celebrated the successful conclusion of an accident-free road trip by buying a can of beer to share. Wine is all very well, but sometimes only a beer hits the spot.
It was a bit of an uphill hike back to the guesthouse, and I was glad that we hadn’t chosen the Summit Motel (I had looked at it, but suspected that the name held a clue). The room was quite small and the TV miniscule, but the owner was very helpful with advice on getting to Magnetic Island and the airport. As it turned out, we needn’t have cooked stuff in advance as the shared kitchen was more than adequate – but I had to resist the temptation to offer culinary advice to a young Australian girl cooking the soggiest-looking French toast I’ve ever seen in my life.
We had to be up fairly early the next morning to get some cash and then walk 30 minutes to catch the 10:30 ferry to Magnetic Island. At the ticket desk we were offered a day bus pass for only $3 extra, $4.20 off the normal price. As we queued to board, the ticket inspector hailed an elderly aboriginal woman in the line with “No love, this one’s going to Maggie”. Presumably she was bound for Palm Island, an idyllic-looking but notoriously problem-ridden aboriginal settlement north of Magnetic Island. It seemed an odd situation – that you could know someone’s destination by the colour of their skin.
The sea was quite choppy but the crossing to Nelly Bay on Magnetic Island only took 20 minutes. Knowing that the bus had limited capacity, we made sure we were among the first off the boat – the stragglers were left to wait for the next bus. About 10 others alighted with us at the start of the Forts walk path. The trail was wide and mostly well surfaced (it had been a road during WWII) and wound slowly uphill. Remains of a military base were scattered among the eucalyptus and acacia, and occasional gaps in the trees revealed views out over the sea.
We’d been keeping an eye out for koalas ever since we got off the bus. Knowing they ate eucalyptus, I assumed that’s what kind of tree they’d be in, but I had no idea how high up they’d be. Finally, just below the fort, there was one asleep in the fork of a pine tree, only about 8ft off the ground. It wasn’t the least perturbed by us getting within 4ft of it to take photos.
A little further along a mother and baby occupied separate branches of another pine tree. Pine trees might not be edible, but obviously they were more comfortable than eucalyptus. Mr V tried to clamber up a rock to get a better photo but slipped and fell, grazing his knees and arms, and breaking his new phone when he landed on top of his day pack.
Once he had recovered we walked a little further around the Forts circuit, before returning down the track to the main road. We had planned to get the bus on to Horseshoe Bay but it would have been a 40 minute wait, so we got the bus going the other way instead. Not seeing anywhere obvious to eat in Nelly Bay (our carefully prepared cheese rolls were still sitting in the fridge in Townsville!) we stayed on to the end of the line at Picnic Bay. Now that the ferry goes to Nelly Bay, Picnic Bay has been left as a quiet backwater, its long pier used only for sitting, strolling and fishing. But there was a pub behind the beach that produced a crispy salt and pepper squid, an Australian staple.
We’d taken swimming gear with us, but the strong breeze would have made it too chilly. We tried sitting on the beach to wait for the next bus back to Nelly Bay, but got so sandblasted that we had to retreat to the promenade.
The ferry had just pulled in when we arrived back at the jetty, and was disgorging a full boatload of passengers. Many were schoolchildren, as there’s no secondary school on the island. On our way back to Townsville the captain announced a detour, as he’d received a report of a boat in trouble – but by the time we got there another boat was already on the scene, towing a small catamaran that looked half sunk.
We declared the following day a rest day and didn’t even get dressed until 1pm, having spent the morning discussing our options for December onwards. We more or less decided to go to Chiang Mai then Sri Lanka, since getting an India visa from Thailand looked doubtful. Then we mulled over the possibility of going to western Australia as it was so cheap to fly there from KL or Bali. We had been surprised when we worked out how little we had spent on food on this trip, which meant that a return might be affordable.
Wanting to see a little more of Townsville, we walked over the hill and down the western side to Coles, to pick up some breakfast pastries and pasta sauce. There we bumped into the guesthouse owner who kindly offered us a lift back, but we wanted a walk along the Strand. Lunch was the remains of some potato salad, as we’d eaten our forgotten cheese rolls for dinner the previous night. On reflection, it’s no accident that our food bill was low! The seagulls on the Strand were bold and quarrelsome, so they got no reward from us.
Our return route was via Queens Garden, which was fairly small but pretty, with lots of birds and a cactus display. There was a small aviary too, with cockatoos a cockerels – it seemed a bit odd, because the birds were so commonplace.
While cooking our pasta in the Orchid’s communal kitchen I got chatting to an Australian guy who had lived in Perth. According to him, food was expensive there, and the traffic very bad. Hmm – not what I was hoping to hear!