Hanging Around The Townsville Region

27th June to 7th July, 2021
Horseshoe Bay is on the north side of Magnetic Island and is a large anchorage safe from southerly winds. On our first day we had a lovely time taking young Tallis to the beach for number ones and twos, checking out the market and the little township. That night we heard some curlews – love those birds.

John and I decided to hang around Magnetic Island and check it out properly. It is a mountainous island with the highest peak called Mt Cook named after Captain Cook who noted interference with the vessels compass when sailing past. Whilst others have reported this phenomenon it has not been able to be scientifically replicated. The island is tiny, 52 km2 with a population of over 2000. It is eight km form Townsville and there is a frequent ferry service to Nelly Bay. The other communities on the island are Arcadia, Horseshoe Bay, Picnic Bay and West Point.

Pre-European settlement Maggie was the seasonal home of the local indigenous people. Interestingly, the Wulgurukaba moved to shore during the northerlies to avoid expeditions of head hunters from Papua New Guinea and the Torres Straits. This stopped with the arrival of the missionaries. Over the years hoop pine, granite, stone,

coral and gold were taken from the island. In the late 1800 it became a quarantine station. In 1898 Robert Hayles identified the potential of the island and developed it; the family maintaining a link until 1988. Maggie was important during WWII as a significant anchorage and assembly point for large fleets and convoys. The Magnetic Battery (The Forts) was built in the mountains and the site can be visited today. A number of cyclones have hit the island with Cyclone Althea in 1971 devastating 90% of the houses which were either damaged or totally destroyed. An estimated 800 koalas live on the island; this is the northern limit of their range.

On our second day at Maggie John and I met up with some people we had met from Bonefide, Serenity and The Bach and had dinner with them at the local pub whilst watching Queensland get thrashed by NSW again. John had a bad night losing the anchor to our tender, dropping his wallet into the water and losing my credit card in the

sand. Bugger, that’s boat life.

The replacement credit card would take a week or so to be delivered to the bank in Townsville so we started to plan our week. Unfortunately, a tourist had visited the island whilst Covid positive with the Delta variant so the area was going into lockdown. Not a problem for us we had plenty of provisions and were used to self-isolation. We caught the island bus to the clinic at Nellie Bay and waited in line under the gum trees for our swabs. Our Locky-D was spent walking Tallis on the beach, watching the Tour de France on TV and eating, which seems to have become our new favorite hobby. Later we visited friends from our first year on Bonefide.

John and I were expecting some old friends to visit from Mossman the following weekend. It was time to go back to the real world to tidy up the boat and have a nice long hot shower. It’s amazing how the small things in life become precious. We sailed across to the Breakwater Marina is quite close to the Breakwater Casino. This was our first time at this marina and we were really impressed with the operations there. Some marinas are a bit dodgy.

Breakwater marina is situated close to the Townsville CBD and the Strand which lines the shoreline. There are great walking paths and Tallis loved it, long walks, lots to sniff and plenty of other dogs around. The Strand precinct was really lively particularly with the Townsville Festival on – concerts, art installations and people making use of all the facilities – BBQs, picnic areas, playground. We stopped for lunch at the Seaview Hotel on the Strand, well, it is on the way to Coles. The CBD however was really quite dead maybe a left over from Covid or maybe experiencing what lot of towns up the coast seem to be suffering - dead centres! We could only find one bar that wasn’t too expensive looking or too dodgy to have a casual drink in.

It was time to get ready for our first guests this year – Julie and Peter. We hadn’t seen them since they visited us in France in 2017 so we were quite excited.

Next: The Byrnes Come to Visit