Magnetic Island
04.10.2007
We arrived to Magnetic Island, which became one of my
favourite tropical islands.
It is a 52 km˛ mountainous island which has effectively become
a suburb of Townsville having around 2,000 permanent residents. It is also half
national park with excellent rainforest walks. It is spring and there are
flowers everywhere.
At present many millions of dollars in development are
planned for the Island and the impact of these has led to considerable
opposition from some residents who fear the effects this development will have
on the environmental values of Magnetic's lowlands which are not protected by
the national park.
The name of the island came about because of the apparent
"magnetic" effect it had on the ship's compass of Captain Cook as he passed the
island when sailing up the east coast of Australia in 1770. People have since
explored the general area of Magnetic Island with various instruments to
discover whatever it was magnetic like Cook experienced, but nothing has been
discovered. (I read this in Wikipedia).
We spent 4 days anchored in Horseshoe Bay, 2 of which we
took to explore the island (the other two days it was raining practically
non-stop.
The walks here are fantastic!
Today we left for Townsville, as we are going to a
“liveaboard” dive trip to Coral Sea tomorrow.
