Magnetic Island’s West Point

We are lucky enough to be able to visit Magnetic Island as often as we like so we tend to forget that large parts of it are inaccessible. Nearly everyone lives in the string of bays (Picnic, Nelly, Geoffrey, Arcadia) along the east coast, plus Horseshoe on the north coast. The other half of the north coast can only be reached by boat, and the middle by serious off-track bushwalking. What about the west coast?

We had a car on the island recently (we’re usually bus dependent) and took the opportunity to visit West Point for the first time in more than ten years. There’s a road leading all the way (10 km or so) to a small settlement at West Point but it’s rarely used because most of it is a very pot-holey dirt track. We suspect the residents like it that way: buses don’t go there and hire vehicles aren’t permitted to go there, so most tourists can’t go there.

Views from the beach

beach and headland
West Point

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Not pines – hoop pine and screw pine

akakMagnetic Island birds and insects are different from those on the mainland, as I noted a few years ago, and the same is true of the vegetation.

The tree most characteristic of the island, because it is so abundant there but hardly occurs elsewhere in the region, is known as the ‘Hoop Pine’. The ‘Screw Pine’ is also common but is not so specific to the island, occurring everywhere along the tropical coast.

Neither of them is a pine, however, or even a particularly close relative.

Hoop Pines

conifers growing on rocks
Hoop Pines (Araucaria cunninghamii)

In brief, the Hoop Pine is native to Australia’s East coast from around Coff’s Harbour to Cooktown, and grew widely on the mainland until most of the accessible trees were cut down for their timber. The trees on the Island, therefore, have survived more because of their awkward locations than because the island is particularly well suited to them.

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Panoramas from Mount Stuart

Three months ago I spent a morning on Mt Stuart and came home with new perspectives on familiar Townsville locations. Last weekend I spent a very enjoyable afternoon with friends on a slightly different part of the mountain, and came home with another set of views.

We were hanging round on cliffs which look towards Cape Cleveland and Magnetic Island. For much of the time we were on a ledge only a couple of metres wide, with cliffs above us (on the right of my first photo) and beneath us.

mountain view
The view towards Mt Elliott

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Blue Tigers in the Butterfly Forest at Horseshoe Bay

Blue Tigers resting in the shade

A few weeks ago I received an enquiry from a reader: did I know what was happening with the Blue Tigers at Horseshoe Bay on Magnetic Island?

At that time all I knew was second-hand or worse, but soon afterwards I saw a local ABC News report about thousands of them on the site of the old Horseshoe Bay school, which I was fortunate enough to visit with family and friends at the end of May. It was a magical experience.

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Many Peaks Range and Magnetic Island

My very first impression of Townsville’s landscape, thirty years ago, was of dead-flat land interrupted by peculiarly isolated hills and ranges, and it has only been reinforced over the years by views and events.

The views? Getting to know the topography from the top of Castle Hill, Mt Stuart or (most recently) Mt Marlow on the Town Common reveals a coastal landscape of mangrove flats rising (minimally) to the suburbs which wrap around the bases of the hills, with Ross River, Ross Creek and the Bohle River winding lazily through them.

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