On a Mission (Beach) / Cyclone Ita Hits Magnetic Island

On Wednesday morning my 2,700km journey down the East Coast began, as I completed a paltry 136km to arrive at Mission Beach. I was leaving Cairns at just the right time and heading in the right direction, as hot on my heals was Cyclone Ita, which had already devastated the Solomon Islands and now had Northern Queensland in its crosshairs.

If I was on a mission at Mission Beach, then it was to see a cassowary. The second heaviest bird, cassowaries are an endangered species that are known to roam the Mission Beach area. On my first day I had no luck, although the walk I went on was brilliant and not short on wildlife - the biggest spider I have ever seen, strikingly blue butterflies, and a small army of blue crabs which appeared out of tiny holes in the sand, scuttled a short distance up the beach then climbed down into different holes. The next day I was on a short stroll with some people from the hostel when we got a surprise. Rounding a corner past a small information centre, we suddenly found ourselves locked in a staring contest with a cassowary! An amazing creature, it was like it had walked straight out of prehistoric times and now it was strolling directly towards us! To be among such a beast in the wild (although we were still on the edge of the town) was incredible but also a little disconcerting - cassowaries stand well over five feet tall, possess a large beak and a long dagger like claw protruding from their middle toe, they can run 30mph and jump 1.5m, and have been responsible for over 200 reported injuries and one death. We were almost within touching distance of the mighty bird and that was quite close enough! Mission complete.

Friday arrived with dire warnings from the Mission Beach hostel owner. The cyclone is on its way. Do not go up to Cairns. Fortunately, I was heading south, four hours on a Greyhound bus to Townsville. Upon arrival at the bus station, a bus heading the other direction was  depositing all its passengers in Townsville, as it would be going no further until Tuesday when the cyclone should have passed. It wasn't windy by this point, but it sure was wet. Rain pounded down and it was also extremely humid. Therefore I decided it was one of those days where you're inevitably going to get wet and sweaty, so why not go for a run? And if you're going to go for a run, why not make the long and steep ascent to the Castle Hill lookout? And if you're going to make the long and steep ascent to the Castle Hill lookout, why not bust out some push-ups and tricep dips at the top? It was a heavy grey day so the views weren't extensive from the summit, the whole town was visible around me but little beyond. Meanwhile, across the water Magnetic Island looked more like a prison island than a tropical paradise, then it disappeared completely. I returned to the hostel wet as could be, with the ratio of sweat to rainwater somewhere around 50:50.

After a night of torrential downpours I was relieved to wake up on Saturday to a dry morning, as I faced a one mile walk to the second destination in my table tennis tour of Queensland. Townsville Table Tennis Club was another purpose built facility of staggering quality. Eight tables with perfect playing conditions, besides the heat and humidity that had me at maximum sweat almost instantly. It was a great morning as all of my four opponents were a good level for me, two I could beat consistently, the other two narrowly edging me. In my final game a jovial 73 year old just got the better of me in a series of close contests, which were great fun although  the effects of the pimples on the backhand side of his bat nearly drove me to insanity!

That afternoon I loaded up my backpack with food and beer and headed for Magnetic Island, a touristy island of mostly National Park and just 2,000 residents. The 20 minute ferry ride marked a 'first' for this trip, as it was the first time I reached a new destination by boat. The crooked rain that commenced as the vessel departed later transformed into aggressive downpours that served as a warning sign that the much anticipated arrival of Cyclone Ita was imminent. On the island, I was staying at the X Base Hostel, which was clearly designed with the usual sunshine in mind, as each dorm is an individual prism shaped hut with the bar, toilets, and kitchen all contained in their own separate huts. This of course meant that every short journey undertaken between these locations resulted in a super soaking, even if I ran. At 6.30pm, I sprinted to the hostel bar to claim my free welcome drink, which turned out to be an insultingly small cocktail of dubious alcohol content. I hung around for a bit then dashed to the kitchen for dinner and then darted back to my dorm. As the hostel has a bar, it operates a 'no bring your own' policy. This frustrated me for two reasons. Firstly, it's just counterproductive to have to spend a bunch of cash on expensive drinks from the bar when you're trying to save money by staying in an eight person room at the same location. Secondly, I had gone to the effort of buying and carrying all my food and beer for Magnetic Island in Townsville, in the interests of saving money and hassle. Well, I wasn't going to be stopped. When checking in I lied when asked to surrender any alcohol I might be carrying and drank the contraband in my room while talking to two Germans, one who lived in Switzerland. For the Swiss resident, English was absurdly yet predictably only her fourth best language and it was more or less perfect. With the night well underway, I legged it back to the bar and found the scene completely unrecognisable from the one I left several hours earlier. Bums on benches had been replaced by feet and the tables were inundated with people dancing wildly. The music was drowning out the rain, which had seemingly sent everyone nuts rather than dampening spirits. It was like the impending cyclone was the apocalypse and this was our last chance to party. It was, of course, brilliant fun, especially when the dancing moved out of the shelter and liberatingly into the puddles on the path and even more so when 'Tubthumping' by Chumbawumba was played. 

The next morning I awoke at 6.30am to the din of water and wind battering the hut. Out the window, the trees and plants were flailing more wildly than the previous night's dancers. 30 minutes later my desperation to relieve myself overcame my reluctance to step outside and I was struck by severe weather. The cyclone had hit - pounding rain, palm trees bending like the ends of a weightlifter's bar, and the visibility reduced to no more than 25m. I stood in the kitchen eating bread (not toast, the power was out) looking out at a scene that was   just like the images of tropical cyclones I've seen on the news. We were stuck in our huts all morning until the weather eventually relented around 1pm. Grateful to be outside and dry, I seized the opportunity to go for a sweaty afternoon run and then a quiet evening stroll. On the run, I encountered a quartet of cute wallabies who all stared at with me expressions suggesting that they thought this strange man held some explanation for, or had perhaps been the cause of the extreme weather they had been experiencing lately. On the evening stroll, I saw a light on the horizon so I clambered over the boulders that ran along the water's edge to investigate further, eventually resting at a large, flat rock. From here, I looked out across the water to Townsville and Castle Hill and the silhouetted mountains that stretched along the coast. As for that light, it was the sun! To my right, it was casting a yellow glow above the clouds, which were dispersing by the second. To my left, I could see the ferry crossing over to Townsville, service resumed as normal. The cyclone was over.