Living on a Tropical Island

When it came to extending our stay at the hostel 'Bungalow Bay' we found out they had a seven night maximum stay policy, so we sadly accepted that we would have to get back on the road and leave behind the tropical paradise of Magnetic Island. We were returning to Townsville later that day anyway to spend a final night there with Matt before he returned to the mines early the next morning, so we started saying goodbye to the people we had met.

One of the things about an isolated place such as Maggie or another frequently visited paradise of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains is that the people found there have decided to specifically spend their time in that place. You have no people passing-through, and rarely find day-trippers, so everyone there really wants to be there . Those that choose to make it their home are unique in their desire to be away from bustling cities and towns, and the small tight-knit communities they live in means only the most friendly and sociable can survive. So in retrospect, it was no great surprise that by lunchtime we had been invited to stay in several different houses throughout the island.

Anthony is a chef on the island, one of only a handful of trades that really exists here, and moved from a small flat in Sydney to a big house in Horseshoe Bay a couple of years ago. We met him briefly at a party the night before, but he was very eager for us to come and share his house with him and an English girl, Natalie, who worked at the wildlife sanctuary in the bay. And for the price of four nights at Bungalow Bay, we had our room for the month in a beautiful, spacious house with massive living area, pool table, huge kitchen, and lovely gardens.

When we returned from Townsville the next day the parties began again, starting on the beach and ending up back at our new house – and going on well into the night! We saw familiar and new faces come and go and made many friends very quickly. It helps having a pool table in the front room! When the first couple of days had passed and the house-warming had subsided we built up our connections with other businesses on the island – it never hurts to be friends with the local restaurant owners – including of course Ferrari's, the tapas bar on the beach front where we drank sangria on the hot afternoons.

Exploring the island was another joy that we immediately took to, and we found a track to the local pub which took us through a tropical wetland reserve past 40m high bamboo and palm leaves as big as houses. The locals called it the 'butterfly walk' – and hundreds of white-tipped crow and blue-spotted tiger butterflies flitted through the air above the path. The walk was also a great place to spot other wildlife – dozens of different types of kingfishers, impressive pheasants, bush hens, wallabies, kangaroos, pademelons, echidnas, and spiders – to name a few. On the opposite side of the bay was a huge lagoon filled with geese, moor-hens, lizards, snakes, dragon-flies, and much, much more. It was a wildlife paradise!

We found that the best way of getting to the other side of the island, about 8km away over quite a steep hill, was to hitch-hike. There's only one real road, so everyone passing would have to be going to where we wanted to go. It never took more than three cars passing before someone stopped to pick us up. This was how we went to Picnic Bay one evening to join in with a music jam and watch fire-spinning on the beach. The fire spinning was enough to inspire me and Matt to give it a try ourselves and we have the burn marks and bald patches to prove our incompetence! We also hitched to and from Arcadia one evening to watch the weekly toad races. My toad, Purple People Eater, came in third – but he looked like he tried hard!

We explored more of the bays on the island and found each one to be uniquely appealing. At the tip of the island is an area known as West Point where we went for sunset and saw that the water was as still as a mirror with ripples only made by the fish breaking the surface. Another bay was perfect for spear-fishing and snorkeling and others were ideal for sleeping on underneath a coconut or pawpaw tree. Living on this island for the last few weeks of our Australian adventure was going to be a real chore.