Fun Time on Maggie Island

Lorikeet Party at Horseshoe Bay Beach Park

Today was fun and easy, and was Day Two of Joanie’s Birthday – definitely the better one!  We woke up early as usual (5am) and had coffee and checked the internet on our deck overlooking the Marina and the Mainland off in the distance.  And we also had our morning bird visit, this time with a pair of beautiful Lorikeets.  They are so beautiful and friendly.  We then went downstairs for the free brekky – which wasn’t bad.  We then hung around this very comfortable apartment, updating the blog and calling and skyping a few of you.  Felt like a Sunday morning at home instead of another day on the road.  Fun and easy.

Live Kangaroo in the "Wild"

We then bought a Day Pass on the island’s bus system and took it out to Horseshoe Bay, where we walked down the main street and then took a walk on the beach.  We then went to the beach park and had a picnic – and that’s when Joanie celebrated her Bird-Day – a spontaneous mass gathering of Lorikeets all around us!    (see previous posting below)  And that was a lot of fun!

After lunch we walked down the street to Bungalow Bay which is where the Koala Reserve is.  On that short walk, we saw our first Kangaroos in the wild.  We saw two of them, sitting under a mango tree eating some mangos that were on the ground.  As we stopped to take pictures – they froze, and then like good Kangaroos, hopped away.  Fun to see Kangaroos alive!  We then bought our tickets and began the Reserve tour.  It turns out that the Queensland State of Australia is the only state where they allow people to hold Koalas – just to minimize human contact with them.  And here they only allow it to a limited degree – charging people for the privilege.

Joanie & Noah

 Anyway, this tour though the Koala Reserve was more than just Koalas.  We saw and held parrots, different types of lizards, even a crocodile and of course, a Koala.  It was a 2 hour tour given by a young woman ranger with the strangest accent.  It was hard to figure out, but I finally asked her if she was from Australia originally, and she told me she was born and raised in Norway, spent a good amount of time in Alabama and now lives in Australia.  Now her accent made sense!   It was a very enjoyable tour and we were glad we did it.

Baby Matilda

We then took the bus back to our apartment on Nelly Bay, and spent some time talking with a very nice young backpacking couple from Canada – kind of reminded us of a younger Joanie and Greg – they even looked the part – incredibly handsome and vivacious.  

When we got back home we had about an hour to shower and get ready for our evening – a bus ride in the other direction to Picnic Bay – where we saw a great sunset and had a fairly nice dinner at a restaurant there - a great Turkish bread and dip entrée, and a not so great main of shrimp and scallop skewers.  But two very nice glasses of wine…each!  (In Australia, entrée means appetizer and main means entrée.  More down under differences.)  During our dinner, there was a slide show running on a TV of beautiful images of Magnetic Island.  We asked our waitress who took these photos – and it turned out she was the photographer.  Very nice images, including ones from the fairly devastating cyclone that hit this area back in February.

Crocodile Googie

After dinner we took the bus back home and basically collapsed shortly upon getting home.  As I said – it was a fun and easy day.

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