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Hi everyone from Mission Beach. I've made a brief stop here en route north to Cairns from Airlie Beach, zooming up into Tropical Queensland. I am in fact in Port Douglas at the moment, north of Cairns but started this entry in Mission - I hope you are still with me! And it really is tropical here - winter? No way!
I spent most of last Wednesday at Brisbane Airport waiting for a delayed flight up to the Whisundays Coast. The flight was with Jetstar, a budget airline so to be expected I guess but the plane was brand new - leather seats - nice, except my knees were literally on my chin, it was a joke! I am flying Jetstar for 5 hours to Perth on Wednesday and then onto Hong Kong next month...help! The Whitsundays Coast Airport was pretty funny too, the smallest I have been to on my travels, in the middle of nowhere and instead of a luggage conveyor belt, it was a free-for-all grab your pack off the luggage car! I got over to Airlie Beach that evening though and explored the town the following day. Airlie is a pretty cool place, there wasn't a beach as such but an awesome outdoor pool and beach area alongside the waterfront that resembled a hotel resort, and a strip about 300m long crammed with backpackers, travel agents, pubs, cafes and hairdressers (where I successfully got a cut-as-quick-as-humanely-possible $20 hair cut). I headed out on a day trip around the Whitsunday Islands the following day and had a blast, they were absolutely stunning. The Whitsundays are the fringing reefs of the Great Barrier Reef, about 70 islands covered in dense forest. The boat sailed out to Whitsunday Island itself first, and pulled up on Whitehaven Beach - the most famed sight in the Islands, and wow it sure was amazing - a long blindingly white beach of almost pure silica with forest on one side and a crystal clear sea on the other. We spotted a dugong or sea cow in the shallows and baked in the sun - nice! We sailed on through channels of beautiful islands and stopped at Hook Island next, crossing the island on foot for some snorkelling over a reef off the beach - wow, amazing corals and fish including a monster parrot fish! We sailed on through the sun, stopping at a resort island called Daydream en route back to the mainland. It was a pretty special trip and the Whitsundays sure are one of the most memorable areas of my travels :).
I had another early start on Saturday morning - for the England game - !@*#... I made the most of it though, beating the locals to the freshest grub at some morning markets along the waterfront, before catching a coach a long way north to Mission Beach. The arid landscape quickly transformed into mountains covered in forest and shrouded in cloud, with fields of all sorts of crops lining the road - sugar cane mainly as well as avocados and mango. I was itching to jump off and get munching... I stopped for a couple of nights in Mission Beach, not far from Cairns, with the intention of going cassowary spotting. Mission's forests are apparently full of them - blue headed versions of the emu which are endagered in Australia. So I set off early yesterday morning and walked a really great track over streams and through dense licuala forest. The palms were beautiful and I saw plenty of fresh droppings - interesting, but no cassowaries :(. There are signs up all over the roads but no luck for me that day. So I took a coastal track back to the hostel in the dusk and still no cassowary, but it was worth the stop for the bush walking - perhaps the best I have done in Australia :).
I had an ungodly start again this morning to catch a 4:45 am Greyhound up to Cairns. It was pretty scary walking and waiting at the bus stop (no cassowary to keep me company either) but the coach was on time and after breaking down about 30 minutes from Cairns and a long wait for another coach...I made it to Cairns and caught a shuttle an hour north to Port Douglas - where I am now! I have ventured up here with the hope of getting out onto the reef but am disappointed by the weather - its super warm but incredibly windy so there are no boats for several days :(. So I am going to head up to the Daintree Rainforest and Cape of Tribulation instead tomorrow which isn't so bad - and I may yet spot a cassowary - fingers crossed! I'll zoom back down to Cairns on Wednesday morning before catching my flight to Perth in the evening - a speedy tour of Tropical Queensland. I seem to have run out of time up here so I will have to return and hit the reef another time.
I'll write a quick update from Cairns on Wednesday - so keep posted!
Grace xx
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