Sights in Magnetic Island
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Solar City Smart Lifestyle Centre
The main road to Horseshoe Bay houses the Solar City Smart Lifestyle Centre, which demonstrates how solar power works and how 500 Maggie homes will be fitted with solar power (currently all power and water is piped in from the mainland).
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Craft Market
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Bungalow Bay Koala Wildlife Park
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Radical Bay
Radical Bay once housed a resort, and a replacement is in the pipeline. In the meantime it's a peaceful spot. You can walk across the headland to Horseshoe Bay, taking a detour down to the unofficial nudist beach of Balding Bay (3.4km return).
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Nelly Bay
This bustling harbour is where the island experience begins and ends if you come by passenger or car ferry. Nelly Bay has a wide range of eating and sleeping options and a decent beach. There's a children's playground towards the northern end of the beach and good snorkelling on the fringing coral reef.
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Horseshoe Bay
The crescent-shaped, golden-sand beach is easily the best of the island's accessible beaches. It has a stinger enclosure , water-sports equipment for hire, a row of cafes and a good pub. Bungalow Bay Koala Village has a wildlife park where you can cuddle koalas ($14 including photos), or tuck into a bush tucker gourmet breakfast. A monthly craft market sets up along the beachfront.
Walking tracks abound on Magnetic, and DERM produces a leaflet for the island's excellent bushwalking tracks. Walks are mainly along the east coast and vary in length from half an hour to half a day.
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Forts
In 1942 Townsville became a major military base, and a forts complex was built on Magnetic Island to spot aircraft with its two 3,000,000-candle-power searchlights. If you're going to do just one walk, then the forts walk (2.8km, 1½ hours return) is a must. It starts near the Radical Bay turn-off. Or head north to Radical Bay via the rough vehicle track. This has walking tracks to secluded Arthur Bay and Florence Bay (the northern sides of both offer the island's best snorkelling).
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Arcadia Village
Arcadia village has the island's main concentration of shops, eateries and accommodation. Its main beach, Geoffrey Bay, has a reef at its southern end (DERM discourages reef walking). By far its prettiest beach is Alma Bay cove, with huge boulders tumbling into the sea. There's plenty of shade, along with picnic tables and a children's playground here.
If you head to the end of the road at Bremner Point, between Geoffrey Bay and Alma Bay, at 5pm, you can have wild rock wallabies – which have become accustomed to being fed at the same time each day – literally eating out of your hand.
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