Yet another short note

It would appear that I am doomed to not upload anything before I get to Cairns later this week, so I'm going to post a short note about some of the things we've done. Expect to see longer (and more grammatical) entries later on. But for now, I'll write a little about Magnetic Island.

First, the name. Capt. James Cook was the first whitefella to sail about in this part of the world, and so he named a lot of the places according to his whim. Cape Tribulation is so named because -- well, he suffered tribulation there. The day of the week he logged Thursday Island? Well, you get the idea. This island is called Magnetic Island because his compass went haywire while he was sailing by, and it could not possibly hve been because his compass was broken, right? So, the island must have mysterious magnetic powers. Of course, no one else has ever observed this, but the name has stuck.

It's the dry tropics here, so you get the heat but not as much humidity -- it's pretty pleasant. Yesterday, when we arrived, there was a cloud cover that our tour guide (I'll write more about him in a coming post) said was most unusual. Today is sunny, warm, and breezy, just about ideal. The island has many microclimates. While hiking about this morning, there were times when I was getting a wonderful cool onshore breeze, and other times when it was oppressively hot and muggy on the trail. I'm in shorts and SPF 30 sunscreen, and haven't noticed a burn yet (knock on wood). My early morning walk was just late enough to miss the sunrise a Nelly Bay, but the was enough wind to create tiny waves in the bay. The forecast was for small swells of about 1 meter or so during the day. Some of our students went out on the ocean for adventues, so they have excellent conditions.

The island folk are relaxed and friendly, perhaps a little more laid back than I'm used to, but if that's their biggest problem then something must be going right for them. There's a lot of development going on, so I suppose that in a few years this will be very different, much more touristy than it is now.

We watched a house being moved today. My colleague and I were waiting for the island bus to take us to a hiking trail when we saw a police cars coming down the road followed by an enormous trailer. It was a half-finished house that was being relocated to nearby our resort. I do wonder if it would be cheaper to just tear down and rebuild? But, it was amusing; there was a sign that said 'no entry' in the way, so the truck driver and his assistant just tore it down.

I am in a village called Arcadia, about 2 km away from Nelly Bay, where we are staying. I must finish this up in two minutes, and then I'll hit the trail back to the resort. Watch for more posts later on, when we get to Cairns. Bye!