1st August
Hi,
Another email drafted out of reach of a wifi hotspot, but written ‘in the moment’, as it were. Actually, ignore that last comment, I seem to have hacked into a local unsecured wifi network belonging to something called the Tropical Palms Apartments, but, hell, if you can’t hack it as a hacker on Magnetic Island…it is, as we ALL know (of course), the unlikely birthplace of Mr. Assonge - founder of Wikileaks.
Anyway, it’s morning here in Ascot Cottage, an outrageously romantic tropical hideaway, about 150m from Picnic Bay’s typhoon wrecked beachfront; the house is set in a tropical garden that looks like Pavilion Gardens hothouse, without the walls and roof.
Ascot Cottage itself was built in 1938, it’s a low wooden bungalow with a verandah at the front, a big shady terrace at the side, where Mum and I are having breakfast of toast and mango jam. (morning Laura) she’s just got up - short conversation about Wikileaks…on goes the TV now competing with the cacophony of tropical bird calls. The cottage is nicely restored and prettily decorated in a slightly ‘retro’ manner, all drifty curtains and throws and carefully nuanced colour schemes in burgundy and cream - going in some way to explain, when we found it on the internet, why it featured as runner-up in an award for top Queensland gay hideaways!
Magnetic Island has it’s attractions….terrible pun, but irresistible…it’s a big lump of granite covered in forest about 5 miles off the coast opposite the city of Townsville. Now Townsville’s an interesting place, part military town, part university town, a place on the Australian Backpacking itinerary, full of hostels and Micky O’Flynn Irish Bars. Judging by the plant and machinery on the seafront it’s also a major mineral exporting port.
Now all of this gives Maggie Island, parked just offshore, a particular vibe. Port Douglas, where we stayed last week is very much the manicured, purpose built, up-market, slightly grey-haired tropical resort. Magnetic Island could be all of that, it certainly has the necessary Kuomi looks. The wildlife is spectacular too - possums sitting on the terrace table and bouncing about on the metal roof half the night, screechy, but invisible birds and minature wallabies hopping down the road in the twilight. Add to that Australia’s biggest colony of wild Koalas - which we going to track down today hopefully - and you have an extraordinary place.
What makes it so different is that as well as being a holiday destination, it’s also an up market-suburb for Townsville - people catch the ferry to work from here - the cottage itself is on a road with other bungalows with local families living in them - when we arrived the guy across the road was playing catch with his kids. Added that, the place also has a small ‘club scene’ with a big backpacker orientated resort featuring monthly ‘full-moon’ raves attracting - apparently- international DJ’s. Then there’s the weather- the temperature which plunges as low as 25 degrees in Winter (now) rarely rises above 29 degrees in Summer - 320 days of sunshine per year; it does not surprise me at all that someone decided to call one of the small bayside villages about 7km from here - Arcadia - it is Arcadian here, I like it, I like it a lot…
