Australia  The East Bit   Day 21 and 22   Mission Beach, Mission Beach to Rollingstone  Qld  26 and 27 July 2016

Day 21    Mission Beach,  Qld     26 July 2016

Happy birthday Patrick, we hope you have had an amazing day. 🙂

Today we spent the morning having a look around the Mission Beach area. First we drove north up to Mission Beach “proper”. (We are technically staying at Wongaling Beach.) It’s a very small village with mostly touristy type shops, you know the thing, Souvenir shops, sky diving, water/island/reef tours, equipment hire and a few bars and hostels. It started to rain as we got there so it was a very quick walk around and look at the beach. We both decided that Wongaling was much better. We have heard from others that South Mission is quieter and more natural again.

From there we drove north to Bingil Bay, a small village with an equally small beach. It has one shop that serves the locals and passing tourists. It’s a very quiet getaway spot, with a few alternative lifestyle residents, and some nice looking holiday homes.

We then drove on to Kurrimine Beach, up through the cane fields. We saw a train hauling empty carriages to a cane farm to collect the harvest. We passed  by a few pineapple farms as well. Kurrimine Beach is similar in many ways to Mission Beach, with a long stretch of beach and Island views.

On the way back we stopped so Deb could get a picture of some white birds she has noticed in cow paddocks. Deb hopped out and started taking a few pics, as she was doing this the cows started getting curious and began to walk over towards her, it was very funny at the time. 🙂

We then went into Tully, home of the Golden Gumboot, and a large sugar mill. But back to the Gumboot!! 🙂 Tradition has it that a rubber gumboot is awarded to the wettest town in Australia. Tully was frequently challenged by Innisfail and Babinda for the “honour”, but Tully claimed the Golden Gumboot after it had a 7,900mm (311 inches) of rain in 1950.

(Please take note of these towns names, and avoid them during the wet season! 🙂 )

We had lunch in Tully then drove back to Wongaling Beach for a lazy afternoon.

Late in the afternoon I decided to go fishing. I went up and bought some bait from the CP office and asked if it was OK to fish from the beach. The lady there asked me why I wanted to fish from the beach and what I expected to catch! Filling me full of confidence right there!!

Well, guess what. Not a fish landed, but I did get bites, my first must have been a ray, as it bit and then took off like a rocket before breaking my line. And then a fish spat my bait back out about 5m from shore. It was a fun afternoon.

Day 22  Mission Beach to Rollingstone  Qld     27 July 2016

We got away from Wongaling Beach at about 8:30 and drove down to Lucinda.

Lucinda is a sugar port, and it has the longest service jetty in the Southern Hemisphere at 5.76km long. The jetty has a conveyor system on it that transports sugar from the storage facilities onshore to waiting panamax ships in deepwater at the end of the jetty. Anecdotally,  it is said that the jetty follows the curvature of the earth, if it didn’t there would have been a height difference from one end to the other. Way back in the day I did annual inspections of the conveyor systems on the jetty, so it was interesting to see it again.

From there we drove onto Rollingstone Beach and the caravan park there. It’s a very good park and we had a relaxing afternoon walking along the beach and watching the old hand caravaners at work helping each other with their vans. Yes, it’s Grey Nomad central here. 🙂