OZ - Queensland April 2 - April 10

Because we were leaving Airlie Beach so late, we started looking for a hotel about one hour out of town in a place called Bowen. Of course, the hotels were all booked but at the last one the manager suggested a place further down the beach road. We had to call the manager who lived a few miles away and he checked us in. Unfortunately, we realized after he left that he gave us the key to the wrong room. So, rather than call him back, we just moved. Somewhere around 1:00 in the morning, Pat heard someone walking around the living room of the unit and woke Tom who thought she was crazy until he heard someone knocking on the door. It turned out the manager had come back to check in a new guest and was very surprised to find us in that room. No worries!

In the morning we drove around and checked out the different beach coves of Bowen and found a really special site called Horseshoe Bay. We decided, if the schedule permitted, we would love to come back on the return from Mission Beach. They had these perfect little beachfront units with balconies overlooking the bay that had our name all over it. We left Bowen and were headed towards Townsville for lunch but discovered there were a lot of people, cars and traffic lights there so we just kept driving instead and made it to Mission Bay late afternoon.

Mission Bay is made up of four townships and is a unique area because it is a beach town where the rainforest meets the coast, a very unusual occurrence. We stayed in the South Mission Beach township in a great caravan park by the beach.








We had a small basic cottage on the beach, nothing special, but the rest of the amenities of the park made you feel like you were at a resort. Very nicely done. The big thing the area is known for is this huge flightless bird known as a cassowary. They get to be up to six feet tall and are a cross between an ostrich, a turkey and a peacock. There are signs everywhere, don't speed because of the cassowarys, don't hit the cassowarys, cassowary crossing, etc. When we went to the information center to find out where we could go hiking to spot them, the guy there said to go to a zoo......I guess there are more signs than there are actual birds!


However, driving back to the park that afternoon, Tom thought he spotted one, or else it could have been a tree stump! We backed up the road, kept our eyes peeled, and sure enough there was Cassie the Cassowary!.. This is one beautiful, funny looking bird and we were lucky enough to get pictures. Between us and the bird was a fence, so Tom decided to climb thru it to get even better pictures.

With that a pickup truck driving by stopped and started yelling at Tom to stop. What you can't see in the pictures is that this bird has these huge prehistoric feet that developed from a reptile and there are instances of people who got to close being attacked and clawed to death. They are very fast and strong and the guys in the truck just kept saying to stay away because "that thing will kill you" before they drove away. With that, the damn thing started walking towards us, probably because Tom kept calling it, and walked thru a hole in the fence. Pat went into panic mode and kept screaming for Tom to get in the car, roll up the windows and start the engine.


Meanwhile, the poor thing was just crossing the street!



After that excitement there wasn't much left in Mission Beach to keep us so we started heading south again and drove inland to the Tully River Gorge. This is the big whitewater rafting area in Australia with up to class 5 rapids. We drove up along the riverbank watching the rafters and then found a perfect spot to hang out and go swimming. The current was quick just below the rapids and, like an endless pool, you could do laps swimming up the river but stay right in place. The water is beautiful and the river runs thru the rainforest so we were regretting that we had no supplies to camp for the night.


Pat had read about this place called Paluma which was nicknamed the Town in the Clouds, so we headed there. The town is at 3000' elevation up a mountain and the local brochures said there was camping there. We were racing the darkness up the mountain in hopes of finding something to eat and a place to camp. To our surprise, when we got to the town we stopped at a cafe to eat only to find that the campground was another 15 kilometers away down a steep, twisty, narrow, supposedly maintained road that cut thru the rainforest. By now it was pitch black and we were second guessing our decision, but on we went. Driving down that "well maintained road" (not even close) to the campground at Lake Paluma was a little intimidating and we thought there couldn't possibly be more than a grass field full of bugs and night creatures when we got there. It took about 45 minutes to go the 15 kilometers and a 4 wheel drive would have been the more intelligent choice, so imagine our surprise when we pulled in and there was a beautiful, almost fully packed campground on the lake.

We took what we thought was a free space and pitched our tent. Typical Aussie hospitality, the next thing you know we were sitting at someone else's campsite, in front of the fire, drinking beers. After talking travel and a lot of politics under a star filled sky, the subject turned to cassowarys (you know that bird we mentioned earlier) because there was supposed to be some in that park. All the locals that were there had never seen one and one of the guys who was a Kiwi swore they didn't really exist. When we told him we had seen one on the side of the road and had pictures, he told us there were people who actually hide in blinds hoping to catch site of one. Tom had to show him the pictures to prove we really had seen one.


In the morning we really got to appreciate how nice this place was. We were down in a valley, in a rainforest, on a lake with chicken turkeys that woke us up. We said our goodbyes and headed out and after driving for a while realized what we had come thru the night before. The drive out in the sunlight was definitely much easier.

On the way down the mountain from Paluma we stopped at little Crystal Creek to check it out. There was a waterfall and crystal clear pools that you hiked back to and it was a wonderful place to take a dip. We had decided after all to head back to Bowen to spend two days at Horseshoe Bay.

We had a great room with a balcony just steps from the beach and the cafe where we ate the first night. The second night we had a candlelight dinner right on our balcony. With the ocean, the coastline and all the various bays it was a nice place to spend time reading our books and just chilling.

With only two days left in Queensland, we headed back to Airlie Beach where we would eventually be catching our flight to Sydney. But first, we wanted to do a cruise around the beautiful Whitsunday Islands. We booked on a tour which they call ocean rafting which is a high speed pontoon rescue boat which held about twenty five people. We snorkeled, had lunch and climbed up a hill to a point overlooking Whitehaven Beach Inlet which is an amazing stretch of 100 percent white silica sand that goes for miles. Combined with the blue water, it is an awesome, awesome sight.


Once we got back to shore, we had 3 hours to shower, get packed, find and book a hotel room in Sydney and get to the airport for our flight.

Goodbye Queensland! No worries......