Picture this...it's night time, the stars are glorious, fire flies flicker gently on and off while flying through the trees, the forest has a haunting quality...magnetic island is beautiful. Roaring out of the bush comes a stretched jeep, swerving violently from side-to-side to the beat of 70's rock music, containing an averaged age of 40 something, singing, musical instrument playing, techno dance glow band wearing idiots, who are most definitely, slightly off their trolley.
Maybe i should change my mind about tours. I took this one (Tropicana) due to my limited time, it's rave reviews and its environmental slant (stretched jeep - i know!). In the morning there are only 3 of us and our slightly wacky but really nice guide (Mal), and we soon become friendly while learning about the local plants and animals. It's an very informative, and Mal obviously has a passion for the environment and nature. We laugh and joke throughout, and i set the tone with typical jokes when we pass the water treatment plant, by asking if this is the shit part of the tour. How many times must he have heard that? We are shown noni fruit which smell like rotting cheese (when i close my eyes i can still smell them), and green ants that taste a bit like lemon sherbet (ascorbic acid). In the afternoon our group grows by 6 and our international, all singing, all playing party begins. Lounging on hammocks by amazing beaches, feeding lorikeets and non-native wallabies (poor little things, that shouldn't be there), seeing wild koalas and birds of prey, squirting passers-by with water pistols, watching the sunset from the beach with booze, nibbles and out glow bands (ever seen a stretched jeep at a drive thru bottle shop?), and of course losing our inhibitions when we play and sing to YMCA and Good Golly Miss Molly and similar songs...
Magnetic island is a wonderfully diverse, horse fly ridden, dry, slightly barren place, with friendly locals, beautiful attractions and a jeep full of crazy people around 7pm. I really like it.
I get a ferry back to Townsville, say my goodbyes and feel at a loss of what to do. It's 8.30pm but strangely I'm full of it. Somehow i end up in an over 35 blues bar, the doorman is a git for letting me in (what do you mean i look over 35 with my hair!), but I'm thankful to him. I wouldn't call the music straight blues, but a mix of fantastically played, well sung, good sounding, emotional LOUD rock. This little attic room is heaving and the combination of the weird and wonderful people who love music, great sound and the whisky & cokes mean a late but great night for me. The next evening i go to the cinema, i'd had a weird conversation with a Scandinavian in the daytime, and was now convinced the clocks had changed. It's a Sunday, its Queenstown and i'm an idiot. It's the first time i've ever walked into a film half-way through it!
I have a wreck to dive - my main reason for coming to Townsville. The SS Yongala, a 109m passenger and freight ship that sunk in 1911 with the loss of 122 people. It takes 3 hours of big waves to reach the site. As they would say here, i feel a bit crook. So much for me being a sailor. Things don't go quite to plan. The surface current is very strong and unless you hold onto the lines in the water, and use them to get to the wreck, you are in trouble. I'm one of the first in, i struggle to where I'm going to go down, the current is REALLY strong. I unusually have 2 buddy's (i really don't like this) and I'm the most experienced, so I'm leading us. One buddy has managed to undo his BCD (inflatable vest) and the other is panicking, my second air supply won't stop free flowing air and I've lost a quarter of my air...
So we struggle back along the ropes, past, over and under people. Struggle on board and change our gear. Meanwhile one girl has just gone in the water and not held onto the ropes - you can just about see her in the distance. The crew have to use their little speedboat to reach her. The waves are bad, the boat is all over the place and I'm throwing up...again and again...
Feeling much better, we, minus our panicky buddy who doesn't have the confidence to proceed try again manage a 26 minute dive before my air pig of a buddy has to come up. The second dive goes a little better at 32 minutes, with a bunch of problems too. These aren't good dives, and I'm very disappointed. This is an amazing dive site and even in the very short dives i see 3 sea snakes, different rays, eels, huge barracudas etc etc... oh well, at least the dives weren't boring.
It's no surprise i don't see that much of Townsville. It's a town i quite like though - it has an amazing beach front - or esplanade as they call it here. Sea, beach, green grass, free bbq's, children's play areas, communal areas, swimming pools, bike lanes, English guy getting told off my a policeman for drinking in public...it really is pleasant. I could stay here just for that, well I could if i had more time...
