Magnetic Island, Australia: Koala spotting, beach walks and cruising around the bays

I hadn’t actually heard of Magnetic Island before arriving in Queensland last week, but I’m so happy we took people’s advice a few days ago and went!

We only stayed there for two days (because we’d already booked our hostel back in Townsville) but I definitely could have stayed for longer. Even though the island is pretty small, it has so many nice coastal walks and amazing beaches - and you can also see lots of cute Aussie animals in the wild there.

It’s also famous for being a place where tourists hire a topless 4x4 or a pink Barbie car (which would have been my first choice!) to explore all of its bays.

We stayed in a mini lodge in the forest – which I liked because it was right next to a koala sanctuary and a beach - and hired a 4x4 car to get around the island in. We did still end up doing quite a lot of walking and climbing to get to some of the more tucked-away bays (not the easiest thing to do in the heat in flip flops!) but the views along the way were amazing, especially at the top of the hills and on the beaches.

We arrived on our ferry from Townsville pretty late in the afternoon but still had enough time to have a walk around Horseshoe Bay and see a really nice sunset there.

On our way, we saw a wild koala hanging out in a tree by the bay! He was adorable and was moving and climbing around a lot more than I’ve ever seen koalas do in the zoo. One of the rangers eventually had to pick him up and move him back to his home in the eucalyptus trees, though, because apparently koalas aren’t meant to be by the sea so this one had obviously got very lost!

On the one full day we had in Magnetic Island, we basically tried to explore as many of the island’s beaches as possible. We managed to see eight but my favourites were Arthur Bay and Radical Bay, where the water was bright turquoise, the sand was white and there weren’t even any boats in the sea.

At the rocks by Geoffrey Bay, I also got to see some rock wallabies in the wild for the first time. They were really friendly – especially to the people who were feeding them – and adorable but also a bit wary of us and would hop away if anyone got too close.