Magnetic Island

Queensland

Magnetic IslandA short ferry ride from Townsville takes you into another world where Magnetic Island, or ‘Maggie’, offers no less than 23 bays and beaches, pristine national park, and fun for the whole family.

With 23 beaches and bays and just a 20-minute ferry ride from Townsville, Magnetic Island has the natural beauty and serenity of an untouched paradise within a thriving community. The rocky granite headlands fuse with sheltered bays and beaches, studded with majestic hoop pines, which create a dramatic and spectacular coastline. Over two-thirds of the Island is classified as National Park, providing a haven for native wildlife including rock wallabies, koalas, possums, and more than 100 different bird species. The Island has a range of accommodation including hotels and resorts, self-contained apartments, bed and breakfasts, holiday house rentals, and backpacker hostels. Getting to Magnetic Island is easy with a passenger ferry and car barge available. Once you have docked, it is straight into island life. Explore at your own pace, take the bus, hire a scooter, jet ski or topless car. For those who love outdoor adventures explore the wilderness by riding or walking along with the networks of tracks available. There are plenty of outdoor activities to keep you busy including boat trips, parasailing, snorkelling tours, walks, bus tours, water sports, golf, diving expeditions, jet skiing, great fishing, and horse riding. There are numerous walking tracks on the island, the most popular being the Forts Walk, where you can usually spot koalas in the wild. Walking tracks range from easy, short walks to longer tracks with a moderate level of difficulty. Magnetic Island is a food lovers' dream, with a range of restaurants to choose from you surely won't leave the Island hungry.

Gallery

Things to do

Magnetic Island Dive Site

Magnetic Island is a popular destination off Townsville for day trips or an extended stay. The island has many sheltered bays that are great to snorkel or dive, as they have a surprising amount of coral and some great marine life. Florence Bay, Arthur Bay, Alma Bay, Nelly Bay and Geoffrey Bay are all popular dive sites with a good variety of hard and soft corals in depths to 10 metres. The coral gardens in these bays are home to a wide range of reef fish and also a good place to see stingrays, crayfish, moray eels, nudibranchs, wobbegong sharks and the occasional epaulette shark. In Geoffrey Bay divers can also explore the wreck of the Moltke, a 50-metre long three-mast barque scuttled in 1911. The wreck rests in 8 metres, 100 metres off the beach, and is covered in corals and fish.

Related tags

Map