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This country is huge. We're driving again. passing huge areas of agricultural activity. The bus plunges on, heading North in beaming afternoon heat. Finally we roll into Townsville, a small port city and exit point for Magnetic Island. A bunch of us transfer to a local bus service that should take us to the ferry. We get a brief tour of the town, it reminds me of Whangarei in some ways. We board our ferry, which churns down the river and out to sea. Magnetic Island is close, about 20 minutes from the mainland. As with everything and everywhere, it was not like I expected. Not worse of better, just different, obviously. The island is bigger and more hilly than I imagined and covered in sparse forest, palms and bush. All about huge boulders and piles of rounded rocks emerge from the vegetation. A local island bus with rolled up canopy delivers me to Arkies, another backpacker place.
I’ve been on the road for about a month and a half now, having arrived in Brisbane on the 14th of February I thought it was only fitting that I depart from Darwin on the 14th of April. I am currently in Cairns, the busy little tourist town at the top of Australia’s east coast. The trip so far has been quite interesting but pretty tame. There is a real tourist route up this coast, with thousands of Europeans heading north along with me. It is nice, as I have met a great deal of amazing people, no bad experiences so far, but at the same time, I do like the idea of getting into some of the more remote areas. Yesterday I went into the outback, only 60km or so but it was a bit different. We made our way to the ‘local’ coffee plantations and roaster. Today it is raining and even the manmade lagoon (only safe swimming spot) is almost deserted.