The drive south continues with a 3-hour trip to Mission Beach where we stay in the best cabin yet (www.boutiquebungalows.com.au), plenty of space in this one and even a kitchen, unlike our previous cabin experiences. The family who own this place have 5 kids who go to the local school where shoes are banned at this time of year. Apparently, it’s too hot and wet and can cause all kinds of foot rot, so everyone just goes barefoot.
There’s some beautiful beaches around here and Garners Beach is just one of those. The Horizon Hotel provides a beautiful cliff top location for lunch and a swim and we even manage to see a Cassawary in the wild. These huge, emu-like birds with bright blue heads are only found in Northern Queensland and there are only 1,500 left, which is the same amount of pandas still left in China.
We drive out to Tully Gorge for a much needed stinger-free swim. The river is flowing very fast today, probably something to do with the fact that this area is experiencing its worst flooding for 37 years. We’re managing to stay a couple of days behind the worst and only getting rain at night.
We’re in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef here, so we take the Reef Cat, first stop Dunk Island, then 3 hours of snorkelling. The kids are in stinger suits which are basically nylon, zip-fronted suits with hoods, covering your body but leaving hands, feet, head and face exposed. A good hour of snorkelling and lunch before another hour of snorkelling when we decide that there’s just too many jelly fish in the water to make this very enjoyable anymore. Whilst Will carries on alone (and sees a reef shark), we take a trip on the glass-bottom boat for some safe viewing of this beautiful underwater world.
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