Walking Magnetic Island

The walks on Magnetic Island are brilliant, with so many great vistas.  Two-thirds of the island is National Park with 25 km of tracks.  On our walk to The Forts we couldn’t have been luckier – a koala was propped in a small tree just beside the track.  As we watched her sleeping, as koalas usually do, a tiny head poked out from her pouch, then a couple of tiny claws and the joey looked at us, looking at him/her.  From the Koala Foundation we estimated the joey could be about 7 months old.

“The young Koala only drinks its mother's milk for the first six to seven months and remains in the pouch for that time, slowly growing and developing eyes, ears and fur. At about 22 weeks, its eyes open and it begins to peep out of the pouch. From about 22 to 30 weeks, it begins to feed upon a substance called "pap", which the mother produces in addition to milk. Pap is a specialised form of faeces, or droppings, which forms an important part of the young Koala's diet, allowing it to make the transition from milk to eucalyptus leaves, rather like a human baby is fed "mushy" food when it starts to eat solids. Pap is soft and runny and thought to come from the caecum--a pouch connected to the junction of the small and large intestines. It allows the mother to pass on micro-organisms present in her own digestive system to her joey, which are essential to the digestion of eucalyptus leaves, and is a rich source of protein.”

Up the hill at the first fort, we could see a whale lolling in Florence Bay.  Couldn’t ask for better day, except maybe a rock wallaby hopping by, but they were elusive during the day.  The species here is the allied rock-wallaby (Petrogale assimilis).