A Day on Magnetic Island: Rock Wallabies, Beaches and Island Time
SOMETIMES the best way to explore somewhere new is not to arrive with a long list of things to tick off, but simply to see where the day takes you.
That was our approach to Magnetic Island while I was staying with family in Townsville. We took a car across on the vehicle ferry and spent the day exploring some of the island’s best-known bays. Along the way, we stopped for lunch and met the little rock-wallabies living among the granite boulders at Geoffrey Bay.
Magnetic Island — or Yunbenun, its traditional name — lies only about eight kilometres north-east of Townsville. Yet once you’ve crossed Cleveland Bay, it feels considerably further removed from the city.
The Wulgurukaba people, known as the ‘canoe people’, are the Traditional Custodians of Yunbenun. Their enduring connection extends across the island and nearby mainland. Today, 78 per cent of Magnetic Island’s 5184 hectares is protected as national or conservation park, within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.
Its landscape is striking, with open eucalypt woodland, sandy beaches and hoop pines. Enormous weathered granite boulders seem to have been casually scattered around the coastline.
Affiliate Disclosure: This article is based on my own day trip to Magnetic Island. It contains affiliate links to selected travel partners. If you book through one of these links, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support Jocelyn Magazine and the independent travel stories I share here.
Taking a car across from Townsville makes exploring Magnetic Island easy on a day trip.
Getting to Magnetic Island from Townsville
There are two straightforward ways to make the crossing.
We chose to take a car on the vehicle ferry, which worked particularly well for a family day out with a three-year-old. Once ashore, we could set our own pace and move easily between the bays.
Alternatively, passenger ferries make the crossing from Townsville in about 20 minutes. Public buses connect with ferry arrivals on the island. Hire cars are also available for visitors who would rather travel across as foot passengers and pick up wheels when they arrive.
While Magnetic Island is an easy day trip, there’s certainly no requirement to leave at sunset. Accommodation ranges from resorts and holiday apartments to backpacker-style and other short-stay options. So, an overnight stay, or several nights, is an easy alternative.
Granite headlands and calm blue water make Alma Bay one of Magnetic Island’s inviting beach stops.
First stop: Alma Bay
Our first stop was Alma Bay, near Arcadia. It was a lovely introduction to the landscape we would see throughout the day. Calm blue water met a sandy beach, with great, rounded granite formations rising around the shoreline.
Magnetic Island is actually a continental island. It was once connected to the mainland before rising sea levels separated it about 7500 years ago. That helps explain why the island shares much of its wildlife with the nearby North Queensland mainland, including the creatures we were about to meet.
Massive granite boulders are a defining feature of Magnetic Island’s landscape and ideal habitat for its rock-wallabies.
Meeting the rock-wallabies at Geoffrey Bay
An allied rock-wallaby and joey among the granite boulders at Geoffrey Bay.
From Alma Bay we continued to Geoffrey Bay at Arcadia. Here, the granite boulders provide habitat for one of Magnetic Island’s most engaging residents: the allied rock-wallaby.
This was easily the highlight of my day. Or, more accurately, watching my three-year-old grandson discover them was.
A rock-wallaby accepts approved food pellets from a visitor at Geoffrey Bay.
There is something rather magical about seeing a small child encounter a wild animal at close range. One moment you’re looking at a jumble of enormous grey-brown rocks; the next, a pair of ears appears. Then a little face. And suddenly there is a wallaby standing almost impossibly securely on a sloping slab of granite.
Allied rock-wallabies (Petrogale assimilis) occur naturally across parts of north-eastern Queensland, including Magnetic and Palm islands. Magnetic Island itself was once part of the mainland. Its wallabies weren’t introduced as a tourist attraction; they are part of the island’s native fauna.
They’re beautifully adapted to this rugged environment. Their colouring makes them surprisingly difficult to pick out against the rocks, while their feet allow them to move quickly and confidently across steep, uneven surfaces.
Queensland Parks recommends looking for them around places such as Geoffrey Bay in the early morning or late afternoon.
The Geoffrey Bay wallabies have also become accustomed to human visitors. We hand-fed them wallaby pellets, which was especially exciting for the smallest member of our party.
Current local wildlife guidance would prefer visitors to let the wallabies forage naturally. For those who do feed them, only appropriate foods should be offered. These include wallaby pellets and certain fruits and vegetables; never processed human food.
Watching the wallabies emerge from their rocky hideaways was fascinating. Watching a three-year-old’s face as they did so was even better.
Taking time out at Geoffrey Bay during a family day trip around Magnetic Island.
Hiring a car in Townsville?
If you’re flying into Townsville, hiring a car can make it easy to explore the city before taking your vehicle across to Magnetic Island. Avis permits eligible rentals from Townsville to travel to Magnetic Island, subject to its island travel conditions. Check the current terms when booking.
Lunch in Arcadia, then on to Horseshoe Bay
Lunch at Bikini Tree Café in Arcadia Village Hotel during our Magnetic Island day trip.
After our wildlife encounter, we stopped for a casual lunch at Bikini Tree Café at Arcadia Village Hotel before continuing across the island to Horseshoe Bay.
Horseshoe Bay has a different feel again. It’s the island’s largest bay and one of its main visitor hubs. Cafés and water activities line the bay, while boats sit offshore. It would be easy to spend a good part of the day here. You could swim, eat or simply find some shade and look across the water.
For visitors with more time than we had, Magnetic Island offers plenty of other reasons to linger. There are walking tracks, snorkelling, fishing and opportunities to see more wildlife.
The best known is the Forts Walk, with its sweeping views and Second World War history. There’s also the chance of seeing wild koalas. The remains are part of a coastal defence complex built in 1942–43 when Townsville was an important military base and Cleveland Bay a strategically significant shipping area.
That’s one for another visit.
Outrigger canoes beside the beach add to the laid-back tropical atmosphere at Horseshoe Bay.
Finishing the day at Picnic Bay
Years of tides and marine life have left their mark on the old Picnic Bay jetty.
Our final stop was Picnic Bay, at the southern end of the island.
By then the day had taken on that pleasantly unhurried feeling that comes when you’ve stopped trying to fit anything else in.
Picnic Bay has its own place in Magnetic Island’s tourism history. The island became popular with visitors from Townsville during the 1800s. Its first resort was established at Picnic Bay in the late 1890s.
We walked along the old timber jetty, looking back towards the mainland across Cleveland Bay. It was a fitting place to finish a day that had begun only a short ferry ride away.
There’s another little piece of history behind the island’s English name. When Lieutenant James Cook sailed through the area in 1770, he recorded that his compass did not behave properly. He named the island for the magnetic effect he thought the land was having on it.
More than 250 years later, Magnetic Island still has a certain pulling power, although perhaps not quite the sort Cook had in mind.
For me, though, the lasting memory isn’t the compass story, the beaches or even those extraordinary granite boulders.
It’s a three-year-old discovering that if you look carefully between the rocks at Geoffrey Bay, something might be looking back.
Walking the Picnic Bay jetty during a family day trip to Magnetic Island.
Make Townsville your base
Staying in Townsville and planning a Magnetic Island day trip? Oaks has two centrally located properties, putting you within easy reach of the waterfront and ferry connections.
Photos: © Jocelyn Watts 4/6/2026