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�Report number 8�

Magnetic Island The last stop we made before Cairns was at Townsville, the ugliest city we've seen in OZ. But we escaped to Magnetic Island, a small island 15 minutes by ferry. According to the Lonely Planet good for bushwalking in the natinal park (half of the island). Ha ha ha ... There were only 2 tracks on the island and we tried them both. The first was 4 hours on the dirtroad (!) to westpoint. We saved the day by a compatition "who finds the first koala" so we were looking up at the trees all the time. Bart won a jug of beer (1,2 ltr) by spotting the first one, Hana won a coke (aahhh) by seeing more koalas (6 fluffy balls who sleep 16 hours a day). Koalas are not very active animals. You can find them in the same place after hours (week/months?), so if any of you go to Magnetic island ... let us know and we tell you in which tree you can find them. The second track was much better. A nice singletrack to the beach, climbing the rocks to the next one and then walking the "forts walk". The fort used to protect Australia in WWII but is abandoned now except for some koalas. On the way up there were 30 small parts of the fort to be seen, like fuel storage etc. Bart refused to go anywhere because he wanted to see only the big things. In the end he chose track number 10, what lead to the officers latrine (Hana: the big thing?) Our experience in finding koalas was very usefull. We could show off to a couple -desporate for seeing real koalas- and in return they offered us a ride back in their funny rental car. The whole island is filled with these little mokes. They are based on a Austin mini but look like a golfcar. After seeing all the walkingtracks we said goodbye to Magnetic Island and took off for Cairns. Hana & Bart

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