Magnetic Island

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

I met an Isreali named Dor in airlie beach who left the day before me headed to Magnetic Island, both of us were staying at bungalow bay YHA so we met up there, drove around on the scooter he had rented and thought very hard about what to cook, he also pointed me in the direction of a Dutch girl he said was interested in getting a scooter and exploring, suggesting we go together. Introducing Annette, red hair, Dutch and a writer as well, we couldn’t get a scooter so I waited until she finished her little tour (I neglected to do the tour on grounds of being unable to wait for food) and we headed off on a walk which took slightly longer than we expected.

Our plan was to head to the Fort, the most common walk to do and the closest to the YHA, eventually we found the start of the route and headed up, all the while talking about sex, relationships and how most men think, eventually moving on to the subject of books, she now knows most of the one I’m writing but still has not divulged anything other than the gender of her main character and the book genre, oh and someone dies.

She was attractive but older than me so I assumed she wouldn’t be interested and I was totally honest about pretty much everything (sorry guys) whereas normally with a pretty girl I would be more reserved. The fort has a nice view and I discovered how afraid of heights she was, this girl scares easily, its comical, but we were really hot at this point so we wanted to find a beach and swim, unfortunately the nearest beach was ages away. We had to walk all the way back to the start of the fort trail before heading down a different road which pointed in the direction of beaches. We searched several possible’s only to be disappointed and thought we would never find one when we met a cheerful man who said ‘yeah, just round the corner.’ sure enough Florence bay was there and worth the walk, secluded and beautiful, surrounded by cliffs and the sun was getting low, my first thought was wow, romantic spot.

Annette commented on possible dangerous animals such as jellyfish or crocs so I responded by getting in the water and announcing that I had not died, therefore it was probably fine. We swam about for a while, still talking about relationships and men’s behaviour, she has a thing for Israeli men I found but didn’t like the way they weren’t actually interested in anything lasting longer than one night. I explained to her that this was in fact all men, not just Israelis who had one-track minds, but then pointed out there were the odd exceptions such as myself, who put food in first place. Eventually we noticed it was getting a little cold and the sun was disappearing behind the trees, so we washed off our feet and headed off, continuing down the same road as I had spied a shortcut on the map, adventure time.

We walked for a while, then carried on, then reached a little path through the woods and took it, eventually deciding it didn’t seem right and heading back, then carried on down the road which abruptly ended, with a beach. We found a couple on the beach and asked them how to get back to the hostel and they directed us all the way back to the main road, at least an hours walk and I was sure there was a shortcut so we took my route.

Going back down the little forest path we went over boulders and through rougher and wilder scenery before reaching, a signpost, saying the name of a beach we weren’t after, we pressed on. And kept walking, noting that the light wasn’t anywhere near as strong, and kept walking, finally we reached a beach and I saw it was the one signposted, and next to that, was a sign directing us to horseshoe bay, our beach, salvation! Well, over the next hill anyway. So we climbed, and kept climbing, but the light kept failing and we watched the sunset whilst we climbed over rocks and boulders and prayed it wouldn’t get too dark before we reached the bay.

It got dark, and we kept going and I kept yawning, distressing Annette even more as we descended the other side of the hill in darkness. She was scared and I did my best to stay positive, knowing full well I had no clue where we were or where we were going. But I pretended and on we went, visibility went altogether and we sort of guessed at where we were not really being able to see anything, then suddenly we were on sand! ‘Yes sand, we have reached the bay, at last, all we have to do is walk in this direction and oh, the ground is wet, the beach is over there. Where are we then, why is there all that water in the way? What do we do? Bugger.’ We decided to walk through a little path in front of these random houses that just happened to be there and realised that it wasn’t a path when it disappeared into the bushes and they disappeared into the water, all of this we could just about see from the light of the houses. Our fear rising we decided to ask a local, however nutty they may be it was our best chance of getting out of this scary place and onto that beach on the other side without getting eaten by crocs or anything else. The guy in the house said we were pretty silly to have been out after dark. Helpful. And also that we had to go back, or just wade through the creek as there was no way around, he said if we tried to go around we would just ending up with broken bones. Thanks for the morale boost! He repeatedly told us very helpfully that we should have come back earlier and that we weren’t very clever and eventually said ‘yeah just wade across as it’s the only way to get over the other side now that the tides in.’

Annette mentioned crocs again, that made me feel better about wading through a saltwater creek in the dark having no idea what was in there, as I knew full well that saltwater crocs have been known to show up at beaches in the north, and lie silently in wait for their prey. So we stood by it and made up our minds that if a grumpy old man, who thought we were stupid had told us to wade through a creek it must be safe, at least we tried to convince ourselves this as we prepared to cross by removing our bags and shoes. Ignoring the splashing sounds coming from the water in front of us.

Holding all our stuff above our heads we began to cross, the water getting deeper with every step reaching waist height about a third of the way across. Terrified that the ground under me that I had no way of predicting might have the odd hole in I slowly stumbled on, water rising up my spine, creeping closer to my bag, which I lifted higher, which made me feel more exposed and kept walking. Annette was ahead of me which probably had nothing to do with the ladies first rule and I was very relieved when I saw her stop sinking and start to rise out of the water. Reaching salvation at the other side we hugged and wept for our safety! Ok maybe we just hugged and said wearily ‘lets get home.’ Which we promptly did and watched into the wild to celebrate our victory! I felt tired but very awake after it so decided to go for a walk down to the beach and she accompanied me, the sprinklers had got everything so finding a sitting spot was difficult. Finding a kissing spot was even more difficult, but somehow we managed to find several.

We stayed in our separate rooms that night. The next day was different, no details coming up for obvious reasons, we had a lazy day and stayed indoors a lot, satisfied with our one adventure. Oh and we got a bigger bed, figured it might be useful.