Well, I officially got offered the job! In one week I will officially be the new tour guide/park ranger at Bungalow Bay Koala Sanctuary! So before I start, I have a bit of time to go explore the island (which really should only take a day or two, it’s reallllllly small).
The view coming into Nelly Bay, the ferry terminal on Magnetic Island.
To start off my morning, I went for a run down along the beach as far as I could go. It’s a pretty cool feeling sitting in the sand and looking back where you came from and realizing that you are literally the only person around. As I walked back through “town” scoping out a good breakfast spot (from the only 3 restaurants available), the little old man waving his cane, that said “top of the mornin’ to ya”, definitely got a huge smile out of me.
The Bungalows :)
When I got back to my room, I met one of my new roommates, Iggy from Israel. I decided to bring him along for breakfast. The obvious choice for me was the little English cafe place on the corner. I declared that it will be my favorite place on the island within seconds. Walking inside and being greeted with a “top of the mornin to ya” by the same old man who may or may not remember that he just said that to me 20minutes earlier, just made me love this place even more. I got my pot of tea with jam and cream scones :) It was so cute! In fancy teacups and everything! My family should be proud of me for this one ;) REAL tea!
It is recommended that if you do the hike to the forts (one of the “must do’s” of the island), you should go later in the afternoon, not just to avoid the heat, but also, so you can see koala’s in the wild and hopefully during a time when they are active. My plan was to go late enough that I could see the koalas and make it to the top around sunset.
The view from the first lookout
Walking up the main path
Mom and baby!!!!
The view from the top!
I did in fact see quite a few koalas. Two adult ones eating leaves over the path, and then a mom and her teeny tiny furry baby!! They were so cute and entertaining to watch, that I barely caught the last bit of sun before it went behind the hills. After my short moment of “aww how pretty”... I took a look around, and realized all of a sudden, how quickly it was getting dark, that I hadn’t seen or passed by any other people on the trails in the last hour... and quietly congratulated myself on my genius decision to go hiking, in the dark, by myself, without telling anyone where I was.
I quickly climbed down the ladders and in and out of the forts trying to think happy thoughts and desperately trying NOT to reminisce about the college days of getting scared S***less playing hide and seek in forts... Still getting darker, I’m speed walking as fast as I can go, trying to find the main path, wondering why the hell this 800m loop feels like 5000m... second guessing if the rocks I’m climbing down are even part of the path... trying to remember what that one sign said about the poisonous snake... curious if my phone has reception up here, just in case something happened, but not wanting to stop to dig my phone out of my bag.... so many thoughts!.... and then you walk face first into a spider web.... the kind that is so strong that it doesn’t break right away... and you gladly choose all of the previous thoughts, over thinking about what monstrous spider built something like that straight across the path. The speed walk turned into a modified version of parkour at one point, that is, until I finally found my way back to the much wider and significantly less intimidating main path. Don’t worry. I made it home. Although walking along the sidewalk-less curvy roads in the pitch dark was equally terrifying, especially when you still occasionally question which direction the cars are coming from.
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