Visiting Magnetic Island with kids is fun! This island is located off the coast of Townsville and is fun to visit in a day trip. A visit to Magnetic Island is varied. You can visit beautiful beaches on this island, as well as spot wallabies and koalas on the island. We visited the island with our daughter and in this blog we list the best attractions of the island.
Magnetic Island with kids
#1 Koala spotting
The main reason we visited Magnetic Island with our family was the koalas. For us one of the biggest reasons to visit
The greatest chance of encountering the creatures is on the Forts walk. This is a walk of about 1.5 hours (there and back) to several World War II forts. Of course, you can decide how far you walk this route. During the hike you can spot koalas in the trees, which is the main reason for most tourists to hike here.
We also hiked all the way up, but we found the view fine, but not super spectacular. So it is important to look carefully into the trees during the hike. It is also good to ask other hikers if they have seen koalas. If a tourist spots a koala, a large group of tourists will surround it in no time, so of course you can pay attention to that as well.
We ended up seeing 1 koala during our hike and we thought it was very special. We also spotted koalas at Bungalow Bay Koala Park. We asked at the front desk here if you can spot koalas here and coincidentally a mother and baby were just sitting in the tree at the campsite. Super cool to spot these two little animals here, with no other tourists around.
#2 Rock wallaby spotting
Another fun thing to do on Magnetic Island with kids is spotting the rock wallabies. You can spot those little wallabies in several places on the island. The most famous spot where they are is on the rocks between Alma Bay and Geoffrey Bay beaches (especially on the Geoffrey Bay side). You walk into a road here that eventually ends up at the rocks.
Here you will also see a sign with some information about the rock wallaby. Whether you are allowed to feed them or not is not very clear. At the boat company they sold food for the wallabies, for example. We ourselves had also brought carrots from the supermarket.
We have seen several rock wallabies here, and over the years the little animals are no longer afraid of humans. As a result, they eat out of your hand. We saw several here (about 4/5). Another place where we encountered the wallabies was near the ferry.
We didn’t know they were here, but when we looked out to sea from the pier and then walked left up the path to the rocks that were by the sea, we saw as many as 20 rock wallabies there. We had the boat at 6 pm in the evening and this was around 5:30 pm. There were few other tourists here either.
#3 Beaches on Magnetic Island
You have several beautiful beaches to visit on Magnetic Island with kids. You have some well-known beaches and some lesser-known beaches on the island. The most famous beach you have on Magnetic Island is Horseshoe Bay. At this beach you also have a number of catering establishments, where you can go for a snack and a drink. The beach is fine and you can swim here as well.
A second beach you can visit on Magnetic Island with kids is Alma Bay. This beach is a lot smaller, but you can do some nice snorkeling here (by the way, it seems you can also see turtles at Horseshoe Bay, but we didn’t snorkel here). We saw several beautiful fish here near the rocks.
These two beaches are visited a lot, as the island’s buses pass through here. Still, you have some other beautiful beaches you can visit. For example, we found Radical Bay to be a very beautiful beach, where there were hardly any tourists. This is because you have to take quite a walk here to get to this beach.
Family-friendly hotel Magnetic Island
We visited the island in one day, but we can well imagine going to Magnetic Island for several days. You have several family-friendly accommodations here that you can book with the family. We list some family-friendly accommodations on Magnetic Island below.
Budget accommodation: Dandaloo Gardens
Mid-range accommodation: Peppers Blue on Blue
Luxury Accommodation: Grand Mercure Apartments Magnetic Island
Also check out the entire list of family-friendly accommodations on Magnetic Island.
Tips Magnetic Island with kids
Family-friendly restaurant Magnetic Island
You can have a great bite to eat on Magnetic Island with kids. At Horseshoe Bay you have several restaurants and this is where we had a bite to eat. They also had a children’s menu here for our daughter. There was also a restaurant here where they sold poffertjes. In addition, at the ferry you also have a supermarket where you can buy some things.
Of course, we also saw people bringing their own food to the island and eating the food on the beach. So you have different options in terms of food and drink on the island.
Best Travel Time Magnetic Island
Located off the coast of Townsville in tropical North Queensland, Magnetic Island has a warm climate year-round. However, there are distinct seasonal differences that are important to consider when visiting the island with kids.
The most pleasant time to travel to Magnetic Island with kids is during the Australian winter and spring, from May through October. During these months, temperatures average between 22 and 28 degrees, with plenty of sunshine hours and little rain.
This makes it ideal for activities such as hiking through the National Park, snorkeling at the coral reefs and spotting koalas. The humidity is also a lot lower during this period, making it feel more pleasant for kids. We were also here on the island during this period (August) with our daughter.
From November to April is the rainy season. This means high temperatures, high humidity and more chance of tropical showers or even cyclones. This is also the period of the jellyfish (stinger season) in the surrounding waters. Swimming then is often only safe in specially cordoned off areas or with protective stinger suits.
For families with kids, this may make this season a little less suitable, although nature remains beautifully green during this period.
Transportation to and from Magnetic Island
You can very easily take the ferry to Magnetic Island from Namur. This ferry takes about 30/45 minutes. You have several companies that you can take to the island. We paid around 58 euros for 2 adults and a kid. We found this a very reasonable amount. However, this was only for the transportation of us as persons. You can also take a car, but the prices were a lot higher.
We did the transportation on the island by bus. You paid 1 Australian dollar for a day pass for the bus. So this means you can travel around the island by bus almost for nothing. However, the buses often run only once every hour. Usually there are then 3 or 4 buses at the same time, since it is often large groups that want to be transported.
Take a picture of the bus times on the signs right away, so you know when the buses are running at the stop. However, it is often difficult to estimate. For example, it took almost 40 minutes for the bus to come by when we hiked at the Forts Hike. Then we walked ourselves to Horseshoe Bay, since we didn’t feel like waiting that long for the bus.
Alternatives to the bus are taking your own car on the ferry or renting a car on the island. You have very crazy eye-catching cars such as a real Barbie car that you can rent and explore the island that way.
