Maggie & Debbie — i am nicole

While Ryan and I were on our Great Barrier Reef tour, the crew mentioned how lucky we were with the weather. Apparently there was a huge cyclone brewing out in the Pacific and they were expecting to be forced to close the next few days. But, growing up in the middle of the country, I don't know much about cyclones. I honestly thought a cyclone was just a bad tropical storm...maybe a mini hurricane. Nothing to board up the windows and clean out the water section of the grocery store for. I was wrong. But that comes later.

Throughout my trip, everyone I met stopped by Magnetic Island to hike and hold a koala. And hike through a trail with koalas in the trees surrounding them. Uh yeah, I'll risk a mini-tropical-storm-little-bit-of-rain for koala hiking!

Magnetic Island is a decent sized island right off Townsville. There are a bunch of places to stay, including a hostel/koala sanctuary. Unfortunately it didn't have any open rooms, so Ryan and I booked at another that's more like a hotel. It is taken care of by Anton, the best host we could ask for. He gave us a run down of the entire island, where to hike, how long it will take, where to eat, etc. He even gave us a ride to the trail head on his way to town. Stay with Anton at C-Stay. He's the best.

Once we arrived, we immediately went hiking on the non-koala trail, saving that one for our last day. But don't think this was a bad trail. It went through the center of the island with beautiful views and ended at a bay where you can feed rock wallabies. At sunset, these miniature kangaroos poke their heads from behind their boulder homes and eat out of your hands. They may be the absolute cutest, but don't be fooled - they'll totally rip the food from your hands.

Sweaty, but we made it. And tried out the selfie stick.

Not too long after we arrived at the rock wallaby bay, a quick but intense storm rolled in. It completely flooded all the convertible Barbie cars other visitors had driven in and made the rocks around us quite slippery. But no one considers the traction of their shoes on wet rocks when there are WALLABIES hopping around! If you can't tell from my set up, I slipped while trying to feed one and shattered my phone. I guess it's a good way to go.

As far as wild animals go, they're very sweet and let you pet them (if there's food).

Our new pet, Rocky. Hope Frank (Ryan's dog) and he get along.

After the feeding, we realized we were a solid hike away from the hostel. So we chugged some water and took off at sunset. Sidewalks are not the most common, so we had to walk with our (shattered) phone's flashlights on the side of the road. At one point, I glanced down and saw a snake sitting at the edge of the road, pulled back ready to strike. I jumped out of the way, using Ryan as leverage, and barely missed its lunge. Later, our research found that there is in fact a venomous snake on the island called a death adder. So obviously now my story is that I narrowly dodged a death adder attack.

We woke up the next morning, not with excitement about our koala hike, but from Anton's knocking. He handed us some papers saying the last ferry was leaving in a couple hours. Otherwise, we'd be trapped on the island during the cyclone. So we finally googled "cyclone" and realized it is the word for hurricane in the Southern Hemisphere. And this one is category 4, maybe 5. Time to get the hell off the island!

When we realized cyclone = hurricane and were on an island, directly in its path.

Jokes aside, Cyclone Debbie was devastating to the northern East Coast, whose economy relies on tourism. There was horrible flooding and damage, and even though thousands fled, even more were left without power, food, or water.

We were lucky and left the island before we ever saw a rain cloud. We drove 4 hours north to Cairns and stayed out of Debbie's way while she circled south.

Cyclone Debbie. We were right off Townsville on Magnetic Island when we screenshotted this.