John and Jill Nth QLD Travels: Magnetic Island

We caught the large catamaran ferry to Magnetic Island (MI) and had a pleasant 20 min calm crossing. We were back packers for the day as we travelled by the local bus around the island. The Island is rugged & has 5 lovely bays. It has large areas of undeveloped bushland. We took our own snorkelling gear & snorkelled at Geoffrey Bay snorkel trail but visibility was poor so we didn't go far. We saw some white boulder corals, stag horn & lettuce corals but the water was murky. Hard to compare after the outer reef off Cairns which was so clear where we went. We then caught the bus and swam at Horseshoe Bay (our favourite spot on the island). Horseshoe Bay is very sheltered & has lots of boats and some tasty eateries. We had some locally made gelato, which was delicious. We caught the bus to all the bays and enjoyed exploring the island. Next time we would just hire a kayak at Horseshoe Bay and not bother snorkelling at MI. Other snorkelling spots required a steep, long walk to reach them. We enjoyed catching up with a Canberra friend, Jon, who was visiting the Island for the day. We saw lots of friendly rock wallabies at the old boat ramp at Geoffrey Bay. We finished a lovely day with a relaxing dinner outdoors at the resort watching the sunset.