Maggie

Magnetic Island, that is. Great place for diving certification, apparently, as well as wreck diving, with the SS Yongala nearby. That's what most people go to Maggie for, anyway.

Not me. I came here looking for an island paradise like Rottnest. Well, it isn't. It does have nature to spare, and it is still quite a small island, but it's nowhere as nice. Less than a third of the island is accesible by any kind of road, even dirt track. Cycling is masochism, the hills are brutal. Most of the island is uninhabited, but there's no way of getting to those parts, short of a boat.

The place is teeming with life, though. Every day I would walk to my cabin, by the wading birds and stresed possums, brushing off butterflies, kicking frogs out of the way, trying not to step on the scarabs, open the door, turn on the light to see the geckos scurrying away, then try to get my place free of ants and termites for the night. In the morning the wallabies and the birds would be at the door.

I walked most of what's walkable, most of it through water falling from the sky. It was beautiful and rewarding, but I couldn't brush off the feeling that something was wrong. According to my Let's Go Australia guide, Maggie averages 320 sunny days per year. Bloody freakishly awesome timing of mine, coming right in the remaining 45 days of pissing wetness.

When I headed South from Cairns, I thought I was leaving the bloody Wet behind once and for all, but, alas, it's following me. And not only that. It's also ahead of me, behind me, over me, all around me, and all the way down the coast. Also, this is apparently the wettest Wet in a long, long time. Lucky me, I could say.