Magnetic Island is situated only 6NM from the Breakwater Marina in Townsville. With the forecast for strong SE winds we decided to visit the Island marina rather than try the only anchorage at Horse-Shoe Bay. The Marina Manager was called away for the weekend and gave us the use of one of the pens for free – What a bonus! The Island has approx 3,500 permanent residents with roughly 80% National Park and has a vehicle ferry/barge that regularly services the Island for commuters. With the use of a free pen, we decided to stay a day and have a look around instead of leave in a strong southerly. There is basically one main road that runs approx 12km over the Island. We found a moke hire car situated behind the marina – just too tempting to pass up. So we hired a little moke, all piled in and drove over to Horse-Shoe Bay. On the way there was a walk trail to an old army ruins where we saw our first wild Koala! Its was gorgeous.. Apparently the Island has quite a population of them. Once we recovered from the much longer walk trail then we realised we made for Horse-Shoe Bay, which is a small lively beach community with a few cafe’s and weekend market along the foreshore – just the spot to quench our thirst and enjoy an early lunch. Later we went to see the Rock Wallabies that have taken residence at the old ferry jetty. Also very cute, but looked a little shabby from all the tourist attention, like the Quakkas at Rotto before everyone stopped feeding them. BBBbbbbrrrrrrr, that winds getting cold. A brief play at Alma beach on the swings before it started to get too cold and time to retreat back to Bella for the remainder of the afternoon. Chris managed to find a fishing throw net in Townsville like the one our sailor friend Des at Great Keppel had shown us. Kieran being Kieran and cant sit still for 5 minutes, so after fishing off the jetty with no luck wanted to try practice throwing the net. A little worried he might catch something we didn’t want or tear the net it took a little convincing, but we decided this was probably a good place for him to get some practice. Well it was nearly dinner time before I had to call him back and Kieran is looking pretty good at throwing the net now. A good day! Tomorrow we sail for Orpheus Island as we start heading towards Cairns. With this wind it should be a quick run.