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18/12/2009
Our first experience of the Greyhound bus was a short 2 hour trip south to Mission Beach. Renowned for its 'Jump the beach' skydives and white water rafting down the Tully River. We stopped here to relax and enjoy the sunshine and long beach.
Getting off the bus we were greeted by someone from Scotty's beach house and they convinced us to stay there. Arriving at the hostel we checked into the budget dorm which was clean and air conditioned then spent the afternoon chilling around the big pool. In the afternoon we did a trip to the local Woolies and stocked up on some supplies for our stay here - a few bbq bits, the compulsory pasta and sauce and some bread and bits for lunches.
Our first night we were both pretty tired from the night out in Cairns the night before and lack of sleep so hit the sack early.
The next day we woke up naturally, no alarms!! and headed back to our spot around the pool. We met some great people - Leane and Heleana from East London, two canadian blokes (alcoholics) and a bloke from essex. So most of the day was spent chatting and joking with them before heading to the bottle shop to get some drinks for the night! We all sat around the pool that evening playing drinking games with all the hostel staff - most of them english - before heading to a local club called coconuts. This place was dead. There was hardly anyone there and it was in the middle of nowhere, but because everything is so spread out in Mission Beach most of the pubs and clubs offer shuttle buses home at the end of the night, which was cool.
The next day was another relaxing one. The girls were heading on to Cairns today and they had just come from Magnetic Island (our next stop) so they were giving us a few cools things to see and do whilst we are there. A lot of other people did their skydives so we all gathered round to watch their videos and photos which made us both very jealous. That night a big group of us gathered in the DVD lounge - which was awesome with a HUGE TV and beanbags - to watch a film steph bought in Thailand, it was rubbish! Some chick flick called New in Town. Losing a few people due to the film being so poor the rest of us stuck it out and then sat around the pool after chatting before packing our stuff for our onward journey the following morning.
We had spent the last week looking for a cassowary but to no avial. A cassowary is a very rare flightless bird found only in this part of the world. They can grow to almost 2 metres tall and have brightly coloured heads and long necks, but there are only 1200 left in the wild so we were really keen on spotting one. Unfortunately, despite looking long and hard in Cape Trib and Mission beach we did not see one. Until.... we boarded our Greyhound bus for Magnetic Island and about 10 minutes into the journey I spotted one strolling on the grassy verge next to the road. I let off a loud squeal and grabbed steph. It made our day. they are such strange creatures. A good start to our bus journey. Next stop Townsville then a quick ferry across to Magnetic Island
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