Stephen here. We arrived in Townsville on Wednesday afternoon. We'd stopped there briefly on our last trip to Australia at the end of 2000. We checked out the hostel and found that the kitchen was tiny. We figured this gave us a great excuse to treat ourselves to a meal out, and so after dark we sauntered down to Tim's Surf And Turf and had the eponymous steak and prawns. Yum!
Townsville was just a stopover to take us to Magnetic Island - 8km off the coast. It's a very attractive island (or a repulsive one, depending on your polarity). (Do you see? It's magnetic.) In fact the island is not magnetic, and is so called as Captain Cook's instruments went funny as he sailed past it in 1770.
We passed the tropic of Capricorn back in Rockhampton, so we're into Tropical North Queensland now. Thus Magnetic Island is truly a tropical island. It really is beautiful here. Much more heavily populated than Keppel Island (where we were a week or so ago), though still populated with odd wildlife. We're surrounded by possums as we eat, and "screaming" curlew birds wake us in the night.
We scrabbled around the island on Thursday, walking (and climbing) about 10k, exploring the bays and beaches. Unfortunately Anne got bitten to ridiculous extremes by mossies. She has bad reactions to bites, and has large lumps on her leg, arm and bottom. Her back looks like she's been removed from The Matrix! She's itching, is in pain, and is very unhappy about it. Fortunately she has a supportive boyfriend who puts up with her irritability like a martyr. I am great. Poor Anne though (for being bitten).
Today we scrabbled over a big hill to a secluded beach at Balding Bay. We sunbathed there for hours. After some time we realised that a few of our fellow bathers were entirely nudie! This was, we later read, an unofficial nudist beach. Unfortunately it was generally only men and older people who'd shed their clothes - none of the more nubile younger ladies. I was thus able to concentrate my attentions on the new Harry Potter book, which Anne finished two days ago.
This afternoon we went through hell trying to book hostels north of Cairns. We got quite stressed and realised we should have booked earlier. We may end up spending one night in a dorm again. Oh noooo!