Magnetic Island, Qld

Left the van at the van park and booked ourselves into Peppers Blue on Blue resort on Magnetic Island for a few days. We took the car though, travelling over on the FantaSea vehicle barge, a trip of about 40 minutes through perfectly calm waters.

Magnetic Island is big enough to warrant having a vehicle, but small enough to see all of it in a few short hours. We did the whole lot in one go, first Nelly Bay, Picnic Bay, Cockle Bay, West Bay and A something Bay. Then there is a small carpark beyond which rental vehicles are forbidden, and most sensible folk as well. We took a chance and drove down the ribbon of medium to large potholes held together with some smatterings of tar to Florence Bay and then on to Radical Bay. Regaining the main road, and giving a sigh of relief, we travelled a little bit further to Horseshoe Bay, the biggest of the lot and located on the northern end of the island.

To be honest, apart from Picnic Bay, which is rather pleasant, none of the others do a thing for us and certainly hardly worth the drive back to get there again. Those glossy brochures and admen have a lot to answer for. There’s also supposed to be 7 WWII gun emplacements and the likes here, built to protect the harbour, but they are going to take some serious bush walking to get to.

We had some lunch in the tavern before a bit more exploring and then back to the hotel for a swim in the pool. Did I mention pool? This one is a ‘lagoon’ pool, it must be 200m long and wraps around several of the buildings that make up the Peppers complex.

The Peppers complex is one of those apartment complexes that you buy into and either live in or rent out through the hotel. There are something like 5 buildings here and two more to be built someday. There are lots of empty rooms and ‘for sale’ signs. One of the bargains would appear to be a 3 bedroom multi-story unit fronting the marina which sold for $800,000, now going for $399,000. Across the road is the Mercure resort and it too has at least one building yet to be built, it’s just a hole in the ground. It looks as if they started to build during a boom and then discovered they had a glut of units on their hands and they just can’t sell them.

I went down to the local shops to buy a pizza; it’s closed. I ended up down the end of the island at the Picnic Bay Hotel, and if turned its lights off the whole place would be in perfect darkness. I am confused, this is supposed to be the peak of the peak season and the whole place is as dead as the dormitory suburb it really is. Mind you, if you worked in Townsville city, travelling over in the cat every day and living here on the beach front might have its own appeal.

Picnic Bay, Magnetic Island. Qld