Todays weather was much better than yesterday, but still very overcast and grey. Consequently, all the photos look dark and gloomy, and not very tropical queensland sort of photos at all... But, at least the rain has stopped for a while...

We had bacon and eggs for brekkie this morning, and decided to take a drive up along the Tully River into the Tully Gorge. The scenery up there is meant to be spectacular, and we were also hoping to be able to spot people on the river doing white water rafting. We wanted to do the rafting ourselves, but the minimum age is 13, so that ruled that out. The drive along the river was indeed beautiful, and although it wasn't raining, the sky was still very grey, which didn't present the river and the jungle in the best light. All along the edges of the river were the crocodile warning signs, and if you look at the photos closely enough, you'll notice our smiles are forced and our eyes are scanning the water when we're next to it... (You'll also notice Dylan has been placed closest to the waters edge!!) We drove the full length of the river that it's possible to drive, and although there were people rafting, we never caught a glimpse of them. That was a shame, cause we wanted to show the boys what it was like... This has been placed on our 'definite' list for next time! There were also no rainforest walking tracks to do (possibly because of the gorge walls...), which meant we turned around and went back to Tully to check out the visitor information centre. In Tully, we discovered the Big Gum Boot, which you can climb up, so we did. The 'gum boot award' is given to the town with the highest annual rainfall each year, which has been Tully so consistently, that they built a permanent fixture to honour it. In one year (can't remember which one), they had 7.9m of rain, so that's how high they made their giant gum boot... Clever huh? Wet though...

We did a reasonably short rainforest walk through the Licuala State Forest, which is habitat to the Licuala Fan Palm, and the Cassowary. A beautiful stretch of forest, which didn't look its best with the damage caused by cyclone Yasi, and was undergoing various stages of regeneration. The cyclone occured about 15 months ago, but the signs of the damage are visible everywhere, and when you talk to the locals, the wounds are still very raw. Tourism hasn't recovered since the cyclone, the streets are empty, and shops everywhere are closed either because of unrepaired damage, or loss of business. Dunk Island is 4km off the coast of the park we're in (you can see it from the beach), and it still hasn't reopened. Numerous resorts and businesses in town are the same. All the positive advertising in the world can't reverse the impressions created by overzealous media reports during the disaster, and what I thought was low business caused by the rain when we arrived yesterday, is just a sign of the tourists staying away in the months after the event. It's a real shame, the area is functioning fine, and they need our dollars to support their region and their families... So we found another coffee shop for some afternoon coffee, and did a bit of souvenier hunting... See how considerate we are?

Later in the day, we returned to Mission Beach and did a bit of walking along the beach, staying well above the waterline. Occassionally I'd push Dylan down to the waters edge, and run away screaming and laughing, until Jo got sick of the yelling and crying and fighting, and we all got in trouble! The photos of the beach don't look so great, due to the weather, and signs of Yasi are everywhere, but it's still a gorgeous area, with palm trees lining the sand, leaning out over the water... It's picture postcard stuff on a sunny day...

Back at the caravan, before dinner, we've been talking about the next week or so of our trip. We've got heaps of brochures we've been going through, for Cairns, Port Douglas, Cape Tribulation and Daintree, and there's so much we want to see and do, we know we haven't given ourselves enough time. So, we've made a decision to alter our itinerary again... Because of the amount of rain they've had up north, advice we've received from Cooktown is that we'll be unlikely to make it to the tip of Cape York and back in under a week. The road will be so corregated and rough, they don't recommend driving at the speeds we'd need to to cover the distance. So we've decided to leave the trip up the cape for another time, and cut our stay in Cooktown to two nights. The extra four nights this gives us will be spent in Port Douglas. It's not what we'd planned, but I don't want to destroy the car just to get a photo at the tip, when we can come back another time and do the trip properly... Besides, we'll still get to Cooktown for some 4wding, and we really do need more time in the Daintree to see as much as we can.

Dylan is now telling us he wants dinner, so I need to wrap this up for today. I'll finish by letting you know that tomorrow, we're off to the markets again, before heading north to Port Douglas. It's only a distance of 300km, which by Jo's reckoning means she can take as long as she likes at the markets...

Oh joy!!