Off to Magnetic Island

Got up at an ungodly hour, especially after having had a late night and headed to Maccas for my last bit of wifi, before returning to the room to pack up the last few things. We both felt really low at the thought of leaving Airlie as it is such a lovely place and really had been so much fun.

Jana and I checked out and walked down to the bus stop where we boarded the Greyhound. The journey seemed to take forever and we were both so tired, so spent most of the time sleeping, or at least trying to sleep. On arrival in Townsville, we sorted out our ferry passes and waited in the terminal, watching an old episode of Come Dine With Me (the UK version!). We hadn’t timed our arrival particularly well, as in addition to other backpackers, it was end of school, so the ferry was packed with school kids returning home to Magnetic Island from their schools on the mainland.

The ferry crossing itself wasn’t exactly smooth and we were well glad when we arrived on dry land. We hopped on a bus, along with a ridiculous number of school kids and backpackers, until it was full to bursting point! After the twenty minute journey we arrived at our hostel, Base, and checked in. It seemed nice enough, right on the beach, with palm trees lining the pathways. We found our room and then found Nikki – it was odd because we had not seen her for just one day, but it felt like ages!

We got ourselves together and then headed to the bar area for complimentary bubbly and sat there chatting about things as if we hadn’t seen each other in weeks! I started to feel a little out of place and decided that this hostel is really not like the YHAs we have been staying in – it’s much more akin to Club 18-30 and so I suddenly felt quite old when they started trying to get people to play drinking games. This made me long to be back in Airlie! We had some dinner and another drink and were joined by a rather large, friendly moth who seemed to want to hve a sip of our drinks, then suddenly I hit the wall and I felt I was in severe danger of falling asleep and falling off my stool, so decided to hit the hay and let the young’uns party the night away!