Magnetic Island (Dec 9 - 14)

Challenges
It is travelling time again. After three days in Mission Beach I am on my way again, destination: Magentic Island. At the bus terminal in Mission Beach I start to read my new book, a simple fictious story that I exchanged for a new classic photography book that simply got too heavy (I was subbing a bit when I turned it in at the book exchange but surprisingly I am doing ok without it). I am worried about the Greyhound arrival time thus ask the guy next to me. We start chatting and as it turns out that he is German as well (there are supposed to be 40.000 Germans currently travelling in Australia, so please everyone with a German passport stay at home where you are if you want to escape your neighbours, because they are most probably travelling here!). Matthias and I get into this really, really interesting conversation: as it turns out, he is studying engineering for aviation and space, and I got many questions for him, starting off with some quality-related, in order to understand better the security of aviation turbines. However the whole talk gets really SPACY as I ask him THE question: what in his opinion are the remaining challenges in discovering the universe? He gives me many things to think about: nations work together easily and voluntarily in space discovery projects, simply because of the need to get enough money together. Western nations cooperate with China, oversimplifying like: let's ask China as we are still missing some millions! This kind of projects are up to the politicians' interest to invest state money in, Obama has in the first days of his precidency declared that he wouldn't be much interested into space discovery, his priorities were others. This dependancy on great amount of money and politicans' interest is making space engineers work really hard, as you can hardly expect any big discoveries in one precidency (5-7 years). But it seems so worthwhile: apparently the Venus had undergone some climate change, today no life there is possible any more as it is too hot on the surface, and I am asking myself as I am experiencing the burning sun, can we learn from it? I think we must learn from it, we have come way too far already! We are talking and talking, and he tells me that for him the biggest challenge is to find out about where life was and is possible on the various planets. I am throwing question after question at him, the bus arrives when he starts to explain me the DNA and gene thing, how far did we get trying to understand the whole evolution, I guess! As this time the Greyhound driver is a really strict one, he makes us seat at our seats and I don't get to understand any more DNA and genes. Never mind, probably not supposed to be at this stage. I could probably look it up in Wikipedia, but isn't it much more interesting and fun to hear it from some human and understand a bit more about your next person's life?

Royal Ride
I enjoy the ferry ride as much as I did the water taxi to Dunk Island. It is a bigger boat but nevertheless any time that I get to go on an island, I get this Elba-feeling that just makes me happy!  I can already feel the peace and calmness of Magnetic island from the ferry. It is just a 25 minutes trip, I get together all my luggage, today it is bloody hot and I am already sweating just looking at what I need to carry.

Renee, the lady that I talked to when making my reservation at the Arcadia Beach Guest House told me to look after a green bus with their name on it. I rest a bit in the sun, to dry the swet, and here we go, next surprise to wait for me!  Renee's fiance arrives, but it is not a green bus, but a green Rolls Royce! A fairly old one, the motor sounds like a tractor, but he moves and carries us to our destination. The seats are covered with white fur, and I start to feel like an African princess. Renee's fiancee is so helpful and nice, that I can hardly believe how lucky I am to have found this place. The room is cosy, clean and light, the wooden floor must be cherry wood and shines. I am in the room with three boys, and actually I can hardly see the beautiful floor as I walk in! I have to promise to show off my German mentality with the boys and make them clean (which I forget about as I simply don't care so much as they respect the space around my bed.

Magnetic stone therapy
I am heading towards the beach at Arcadia bay. It is a lovely setting, there is just one family with kids on the beach playing with their dog (too romantic to be realistic), and I am walking towards the north. Renee had told me that there is a place at the end of the beach where you could watch wallabies at the sunset. I walk and walk and walk and suddenly there is a small animal crossing my way. As much as a nature expert that I am, I think that they are kangaroos, but seem a bit small to me. I continue my way, and encounter more and more of them, until it dawns to me: they are not kangaroos, but the famous wallabies! I am all alone with them, they make funny noises as the young ones fight amongst each other. There is even a mother that carries his small one in her "bag"'. It's a very peaceful atmosphere, I just sit down, trying to make some portraits of them. At some point, as other human beings join me, I continue the way, down to the stony part of the walk that turns out to be really spectacular!

Magnetic Island is actually famous for the stone formations, that you can see mostly at the beaches. Massive stones and rocks (not sure what the difference is, but it's all out there!), it looks like someone has simply droped them as beach decoration, most of them round, but some of them strangely squared. I sit on one of them and get a wonderful, relaxing hot stone massage for free! The stones are so hot, heated up from the sun, a wonderful natural storage of energy that smoothes my headache. The sun sets in a few minutes, it is too fast for me, I could enjoy it for much longer! Magnetic Island is the first really strong energetic place that I visit as I feel now sitting on the rocks.

Island exploration
There is so much wildlife here to explore for me, and it all comes step by step and mostly in a surprising way. My German roommate (very shy as I turn up in the room) tells me that the strange bird sounds that we hear from the street must be parrots. Next morning I am standing at the bus stop and looking at the trees. No parrots. I get off at Horseshoe Bay and take a relaxing swim in the stinger net (how sexy this is, again as it is stinger season, I am not taking the risk of a swim in the open ocean, noone else does). I decide to go for a walk after I had my first mango smoothie at the Noodies. It is actually a very steep walk up the hill, there is a couple in front of me and an Australian behind me. The Australian is not very sympathetic to me and I let me overtake me. He starts talking with the couple, and again I can hardly understand this. But I do understand that he tries to show off with the girl with his (honestly very poor) Italian. I decide to walk with them to the Nudist Beach as I am not up to a lonely walk to the other bay. I am happy to bond a bit with the couple and forget about the guy that I did not like at all. Sometimes anxiety comes back to me, and probably it is just protecting me.

Heading back to the Horseshoe bay before crossing the last creek, there is a guy greeting us smiling from the other side of the creek, and surprise surprise it is: Owen!  I am happy to meet a known, trustful person on this whole wide bay and we exchange details. He tells me about Getrud that he met and is at the same hostel as he is. I am almost too sure to meet them again, without fixing up something concrete with Owen.

Driving back, heading home towards Arcadia Bay I decide to go further up to the very last stop of the bus line, which was a wise decision. I get off the bus at Picnic bay at sunset, and it is another beautiful setting: in the far the lights of the Townsville coast, a jetty just in front of us with some young locals trying to catch some fish for the weekend barbecue. There is family that was with me on the bus that is out for a swim, again the whole scenery almost too beautiful to be realistic. I have a fish burger and head home for a good night sleep.