Mission Beach

There’s a bit of a storm blowing and we’ve got no brakes to speak of - luckily Karen is driving. We wend our weary way over the last 20 kms of windy windy (blowing and bendy) wet road past several signs warning us to be CASSO-WARY. Most tourists have probably never heard of these large endangered flightless birds hence their high mortality rate from the most dangerous predator of all – the speeding 4WD. Luckily we had read our guidebook and knew there were only 1500 left in the world (enough to fill about 2.5% of Old Trafford presuming these birds had small bottoms and were stupid enough to be interested in watching Man Utd – there haven’t and they aren’t). So large in fact are their bums (and throats) that it enables them to swallow and excrete intact some of the largest seeds in the world. These include many of the arboreal inhabitants of the rainforest making them conservationists ‘par excellence’.

I am very excited about meeting this three-toed man-sized monster-bird, but we are out of luck on our morning trip to Garners Beach, despite passing through a Cassowary ‘hotspot’. At least there are no flies either and plenty of shells to keep the kids amused. Plenty of warnings about marine stingers too, with bottles of vinegar provided by the council to ease the pain – a clear warning that swimming is a no-no in Queensland at this time of year.

On the way to lunch and a swim @ the well-positioned Horizons hotel we strike gold. Along struts a magnificent bird with a blue and purple head and red wattles (neck-lobes). This is clearly a cassowary and it’s right in front of us. What an awesome sight - very different to seeing one in captivity (cf Australia Zoo).

We try to book a reef trip but it’s still a bit stormy so we head to Tully. This is the wettest town in Australia and home of the giant 7.9m tall gumboot, testament to the annual rainfall in 1950 when the town received its award. Ironically it’s a sunny day (despite the high swells out to see and the fact that Townsville a few hours south is having its worst floods in 120 years). We stock up for a picnic and drive towards the Tully Gorge that is surprisingly easy to miss. We end up at a dead end at the hydro-electrical plant notable for the fact that if it opens its floodgate the Tully river turns instantaneously from stream to raging torrent. It is therefore with some unease that on eventual arrival I tow Ruby across the river. The current is pretty fierce and having got across one way by starting way upstream and managing to grab onto a rock I make it back pretty knackered having told Ruby to hang on to my waist while I sprint at full speed angled acutely upstream. The March flies are bastards (apparently if you squash one, others can smell their splattered colleague and attack ‘en masse’). While Karen, Ruby and I rush to get clothed, Harley is clearly immune and has great fun lobbing ever-larger stones into the river narrowly missing a handful of other tourists. This tires him eventually and he sleeps through the banana plantation filled drive back to our boutique B&B. He then scoffs a large kebab and wont sleep ‘till after midnight - so much for a relaxing Jim Carey DVD….

It’s Thursday and we’re booked on the morning catamaran to the reef. We stop off at Dunk Island where I revisit the site of a dangerous waist deep island-to-island walk in 1990 with stingrays and stonefish. I was stung by something and had a nervous ½ hour wait while the locals deliberated on whether it was fatal or not. No such drama this time as we pick up a few passengers and head out to the Great Barrier Reef proper. We plump for the guided tour and are quite a sight in our snorkelling gear and life-vests with the kids in stinger suits for added jellyfish protection and Harley in a ring. We watch parrotfish, blue and yellow fusiliers and a huge black estuary cod feed and then we are taken to the clown fish that live symbiotically with sea anemones. We get to handle starfish and slimy sea cucumbers and are told about the fragile ecosystem before grabbing some lunch onboard. After lunch the jellyfish are getting a bit too numerous for comfort so Karen takes the kids on the glass-bottomed boat where they spot a turtle. I stay in the water where the sights are amazing including huge (less dangerous) jellyfish that are very beautiful after the initial fear subsides and, the highlight of the trip, a white-tipped reef shark that powers past me and into the distance before I have time to work out if I’m awestruck or petrified. The coral itself is plentiful and varied though not as impressively vibrant as in the photos. I make it to a sandy cay about 100m long and 10m wide topped with birds eggs and incredible white sand and it feels like I’m standing in the middle of the ocean. We head back to shore reflecting on a fantastic experience that will stick in the memory for a very long time.