About a 4 hour bus ride from Airlie Beach is Townsville - where I arrived around 2pm and took a ferry directly to Magnetic Island . Met at the ferry station by a very eccentric character Daniel Daniel who haphazardly became my chauffeur around the island. I stayed at a Base Hostel in Nelly Bay.

I was pooped from my partying in Airlie so headed in early in order to awake for my 9am horse back ride that was on the other side of the island (it's not a very big island). I was assigned "Poppy" who sadly wasn't so "poppy". She didn't get to a canter like I would have liked so trotting is all we did. But the coolest part was running (trying to) on the beach! We then went bareback in the ocean (the horse was, not me!)..and ironically they say Magnetic Island has 320 sunny days a year - i think i arrived on one of the 45 days of rain - as it started to "sprinkle" while we were on the beach - alas, they "needed" the rain!

After cleaning up from the horses, I caught an afternoon ferry back to Townsville where I met Ceasere and Roni - two blokes from Italy with limited English - however VERY funny!