Mission Beach

After our time in the Whitsundays, we were nearing the end of our mammouth drive which would take us to Port Douglas for Christmas. We decided to make a stop at Mission Beach on the way through as this seemed a good half way point. I again stopped here with Louisa for a night last time, but it was completely different this time round and we arrived in time to see more stuff. North Queensland is home to the Southern Cassowary. Strange name for a bird that is only found on the North coast of Australia, but it's because they are also found in Papa New Guinea (north of Australia). The guide books say that you've a good chance of seeing one in the wild at Mission Beach.

We drove down a road which was a conservation area for these great birds, and passed several signs telling us there had been recent sightings and crossings. I was sooo excited and was really hopeful we'd see something, but alas, all we saw was some rainforest. Still, it was a lovely drive with some fantastic scenery along the way. I tried to get some pictures as Chris drove and every time I opened the window the temperature in the car would rise considerably. It's no wonder that the British summer is the low season for Queensland - you can't go in the sea up north (because of the jelly fish) without protection (in the form of a stinger suit or a stinger net) and it's just too hot to do very much. I thought starting at the bottom in Melbourne and working our way up to get accustomed to the heat would work, but how wrong I was!

At Mission Beach, the hostel we stayed in seemed friendly enough but I was put off by more cockroaches, so must confess to being quite relieved we only had the one night again. The next day we headed off for our final leg of the journey, Port Douglas.

I'll tell you about that seperately...