Mission Beach 2

Our first walking trip was to Bicton Hill at Bingle Bay. A very pleasant walk up the hill to a lookout at the top with views of the islands - Dunk and Bedarra the closest with Hinchinbrook in the distance. No cassowaries in sight! This was followed by the first of many relaxing walks along the beach.
This has been a really relaxing few days where we explored the therapeutic qualities of fishing at dusk and dawn in the surf, beach and rainforest walks (to Tam O'Shanter headland which is part of the Kennedy National Park) and push bike riding. Again, no cassowaries!

Tonight we dinner with friends of Chris's who live at Bingle Bay. She last saw them about 30 years ago after working with them in Blackwater.

Tomorrow we head to the Atherton tableland so there'll be more adventures then.

Seen these past few days: Palm trees, coconuts, green tree ants, no cassowaries, delightful views across to the islands.

Mission Beach

We left Sarina on Wednesday and had a really leisurely drive to Mission Beach.Our first stop was in Townsville for a casual walk along The Strand. It has been many years since either of us has been to Townsville and we were really impressed with what has been happening on the foreshore. They are gearing up for a special program of activities and one of them was the displays of sculptures and art work along The Strand. There was everything from sand sculptures, metallic sharks and fish to crocheted and knitted coral and sea creatures. It was also great to see the 'Saint' still painted on the side of Castle Hill.
We ended up in Cardwell for lunch. What an amazing transformation the foreshore has had since the last cyclone. It is such a draw card for travellers.
Our journey then took us to Mission Beach and a mission of our own - to see one of the elusive cassowaries! John thinks it's just ploy to get people to come to the north, as we have spent the last couple of days finding much evidence that they have been around, but have seen none. The Davidson Plum seeds in the droppings are a dead give!

We arrived at our friends place easily enough and after settling in went for the necessary walk to the beach. How wonderful to step out onto the beach and look across to Dunk Island, then to follow the beach all the way up to a creek and the setting sun.  Our friends put us on the path to checking for croc tracks and more importantly, croc lookout. So far we haven't seen evidence of either (luckily).
The day ended with a fishing expedition to the creek and surf. While we didn't catch anything we could keep we really enjoyed the peace and calm.

Heading north

Our first beach stop on the way was at Clareview, south of Sarina. We knew we were nearing north Queensland because there were coconuts just lying on the sand under the trees. It would have been easier with a machette but John's persistence/stubbornness paid off  with our rather large travelling knife. The coconut was delightfully tasty.
After a lovely night catching up with friends in Sarina, we have worked our way further north and tonight are in Ayr.

It doesn't matter how long you've been away, as soon as you pass a working sugar mill the smell memories flood back! The mills are now in full swing as you can see from this photo just north of Mackay. The motel owner told us that burning is still necessary before harvesting in this area. Cane burning is more rare these days. Everyone around here has black feet if they go barefoot, from the ash.
Seen today: Commercial salt pans at Bowen, the jetty where they filmed the movie 'Australia', great little museum at Proserpine and the well known Burdekin River bridge.