Day 40. Magnetic Island, Queensland

One of the island’s more challenging walks is to a decommissioned gun emplacement that sits high on the southern headland.

Constructed in the early 1940’s to protect shipping coming in and out of Townsville, it never got to fire a shell in anger. But when you consider that the Japanese controlled most of the South Pacific at that time, you can understand why the locals went to such lengths to build the thing.

A notice at the start of the trail warns us to ‘Beware of Death Adders’. Now, I’m no David Attenborough, but when it comes to working out what an animal excels at, I know there’s often a clue in its name.

Your Woodpecker, for example, is pretty adept at knocking little holes in trees, while there’s no better creature at skipping across a meadow than a Grasshopper.

So we check the Death Adder message once more to make sure we read it correctly – which we have – then look down at our shorts and open-toed sandals and wonder if a trip to the beach might be a better idea.

Fortunately, we choose to press on, and the only wildlife we encounter is a little Koala fast asleep in the branches of a Eucalyptus tree.


Which is nice.