Magnetic Island
— — the granite the sea forgot to take.
Not only on a wall.
“A granite island in Cleveland Bay, eight kilometres off the Queensland coast. Hoop pines lean off the boulders; koalas hold their place in the eucalypts above the Forts Walk. The bays curl one after another — Horseshoe, Arcadia, Florence, Radical — and the wind off the Coral Sea moves through all of them the same way. Most of the island is national park. The ferry runs from Townsville and the road only gets you so far.
Magnetic Island, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Magnetic Island sits roughly eight kilometres off Townsville in the Coral Sea, a continental island of weathered granite cored by hoop pines and open eucalypt forest. James Cook named it in June 1770, recording that the island appeared to disturb his ship's compass as HMS Endeavour passed. More than half of its roughly 5,200 hectares is gazetted as Magnetic Island National Park, administered by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. The island carries one of northern Australia's densest wild koala populations, concentrated along the Forts Walk above Horseshoe Bay.
The island's character comes from its granite. Tors weathered out of a Permian pluton sit piled along every ridge, scoured pink and grey, dropping in clean blocks toward the bays. The Forts Walk threads between them past gun emplacements and a command post built in 1942 to watch for the Japanese fleet, abandoned at the close of the war. Below the boulders the bushland thins to hoop pine and bloodwood, the kind of dry coastal forest the granite drains too fast for anything denser. The stone is what holds the island together.
The SeaLink ferry crosses from Townsville to Nelly Bay in about twenty-five minutes and runs through the day. A sealed road links the four populated bays — Picnic, Nelly, Arcadia, Horseshoe — and a small bus loops between them. Beyond the road, twenty-five kilometres of walking track open the headlands and the dry forest, the Forts Walk being the most travelled at around four kilometres return. Stinger nets sit at the swimming beaches from November through May. The national park gate is open daily and free.