5th - 10th October 2020
We left Townsville on Tuesday morning and started making our way to Mission Beach. The morning was a damp one and we did experience a little bit of rain on the way up as well as a lot of road works (You have gotta love the Bruce Highway !!!) I think the 2 hour trip ended up taking us almost three hours !!
We decided to stay at the Dunk Island View Caravan Park which is just south of Mission Beach village in Wongaling Beach. The park is in a really great spot as it is only about 20m to the beach and the sites are huge. I think the whole area was love at first sight as all along the beach, which runs about 14km in total from Mission Beach down to South Mission Beach there is palm trees and rainforest all the way along. It is truly one of the most beautiful places I have seen. The beach seems to go for miles and looks over to Dunk Island and many other smaller islands in the distance.
We have spent the week exploring the village and doing a few beach walks.
One of the walks we did was the Edmund Kennedy Walking Track which is just past South Mission Beach at Lugger Bay. This is a 7km return walk but oh my what a walk. You start the walk on a boardwalk which takes you out to Lovers Beach, then you walk further south to Kennedy Bay. The boardwalk only goes for about a few hundred metres then you follow a path through rainforest along hillside and rocky sections, through mangroves and along beaches and up some stairs but the views along the way are spectacular. This walk is best done on low tide. We walked along the beach at one point and came to a water crossing and started to walk across when we noticed there were footprints (probably crocodile). I then suggested that maybe that might be why there was a bridge nearby and that maybe we should walk across that instead. When we walked up to the bridge there was a sign saying Beware Crocodiles have been spotted in this area (OMG). A walk well worth doing as the views over the sparkling aqua blue sea are truly amazing.
On one of the days we took a drive to Tully to have a look at the sugar refinery, which unfortunately is closed to tours due to Covid (bloody Covid !!) and also to check out the Giant gum boot as Tully is supposedly the wettest place in Australia. We will be back to check out Tully Gorge in the next few weeks.
We also drove up the Innisfail, Etty Beach, Kurrimine Beach, Silkwood & South Johnstone. This was a beautiful drive through cane fields and banana plantations. At the moment the sugar cane harvest is in full swing so there are plenty of sugar cane trains and harvesters working in the area.
Lots to explore in this area, so we have decided to base ourselves in Mission Beach for a few weeks !!!
