As Europeans, we couldn’t wait to see our first koalas ever in reality. We heard, one great spot to find wildlife koalas is on Magnetic Island. So, we needed to go! Just a half day ride from Cairns on the way to Whitsundays, you can reach Magnetic Island with a short ferry ride. Huge rocks all over the beaches and mountains welcome you with a slight Seychelles-like impression. Filled with lots of gumtrees (eucalyptus) and some leftovers from the First World War, the Fort’s Walk takes you up on a hilltop. The chances are quite high to find the koalas here. Fun fact, koalas are picky with their eucalyptus and when they found a great tree that tastes awesome, some koala spends their whole life just sitting on that ONE tree sleeping and eating its leafs! They actually never drink and get all their liquid and nutrition from those leafs.
We have been lucky and saw four koalas. One pretty big male one sitting so low in his tree we could have touched him. Despite all the visitors he didn’t wake up and was just sleeping all the time. Some meters down the path was a mother with her teenage koala kid... so cute! To spot them, people actually help each other by drawing arrows in the sandy pathway, where to look for them. Take your chance and find some of your own, and don’t forget to draw an arrow to help others.
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