Christmas on Maggie Island

First stop was Townsville. A lil town that looked a bit deserted. It was ok for 1 night though, actually our hostel was one of the best we'd stayed in so far. It was so clean.

The next day (christmas eve) we made our way to magnetic island on the boat. It only took 30minutes. We checked into Bungalow bay where we reserved a cute cabin for ourselves. Bungalow bay is also a hostel and camping ground so there was a swimming pool, restaurant and a big kitchen. There was a lot of nature roaming around birds and hundreds of Wallabies. We decided to make christmas our own so we found a branch and made our christmas tree with hand drawn decorations,  we then wrapped up our presents and put them under the tree. You'll see in the pic that the tree has a bottom, that's actually a bin. We were so creative. 

On Christmas day it was a very hot and sunny so we decided to have our xmas dinner down at the beach with a bbq. We kept christmas morning quite traditional, we woke up, put the christmas album on and opened the champagne. Our breakfast was salmon on toast and opening the presents.

Christmas presents.

We headed to the beach to get our bbq at about midday. Our bbq was so good, we had salted corn-on-the-cobs, chicken wings, burgers, salad, crisps, strawberries and cake. The beach was full of families setting up tables with decorations, bringing their mini fridges down and party hats. All the locals just seemed to be playing cricket, getting drunk and eating huge bbq's. 

After our lunch we just chilled at the beach and went in the sea. I bought Cj a special beach ball that everyone has there so we played with that in the sea. 

In the evening we just chilled in our bungalow and skyped everyone.

On boxing day we booked a wildlife tour at the koala sanctuary, which is actually in our hostel grounds. We held a terrapin, cock-a-too bird, baby crocodile, lizard reptile, a snake and a Koala bear. We also got to see a Wombat. This tour was really good and the koalas are so cute.

(baby crocodile)

After this we got a short bus ride to a place called Geoffrey bay. We hired stinger suits and snorkelling gear and went out to the sea. Parts of the great barrier reef are here so the coral is really nice to explore. We saw loads of tropical fish, sting rays and a sunken propeller from WW2.  

We ended our boxing day with another bbq as we had some chicken left over. 

A Wallaby outside our hut.

The next day we went back to Townsville on the ferry. We stayed here 1 night before moving onto Cairns. For one of Cj's xmas presents i took him to the Reef HQ aquarium in Townsville, so we wet here in the afternoon. There is a lot of information on the reefs research and how they are protecting it. They also have a turtle hospital here so we visited and saw the turtles they are looking after.