Mission Beach

Mission Beach was AMAZING!!

This update'll be kinda quick, since I'm leaving for the airport in about a half-hour and I won't have internet until I'm in LA at the earliest.

Took the bus up to Mission Beach, which is the closest the rainforest gets to the reef (I think I may have said that in an earlier post...) The hostel I stayed at was really nice- all the people were super friendly and it was just across the road from the beach. There was only one other guy in my room, and he checked out on Saturday, so I had a room to myself on the last night.

Anyway, first night the hostel had a bbq, so I got steak for cheap, and then some British girls and my roommate (who was also British) and I played Trouble and chilled. Next day I woke up and went to the beach as instructed, where I got picked up by one of those amphibious boats that has tires so it can drive up on shore.

It took me to Dunk Island, where I got on a boat for the reef trip I'd signed up for (there's a picture on the photobucket.) It was a small boat, with only 11 people on the tour.

The reef was about an hour out... and it was AMAZING!! Much better than the one at the Whitsundays (possibly because I wasn't freezing...ironic since it's winter here now). I saw blue and green and purple corals, and sponges, and sea cucumbers as big around as my thigh, and giant clams with purple/blue lips and glowy green dots, and three sharks, and a sea turtle, and schools of giant fish, and schools of tiny little blue fish, and on the boat ride back I saw FLYING FISH, and they really look like they fly! (I guess they glide or something...)

I was the only one signed up for the intro dive (the dive for non-certified divers), so I got to swim around the bottom of this lagoon with the instructor. I got to touch a sea anemone, and a giant clam, and hold a starfish, and a cassiopea (a little floating sea-slug type deal...), and one of those sea cucumbesr with the odd star-like structures... it was INCREDIBLE! I'm so glad I went.

Anyway, got back to the hostel, went to the grocery store, picked up some cheap food, made dinner, hung out, slept, etc.

Saturday I went down to the longest rainforest hike I could find that I could get to. (Apparently if you have a car there's a ton more stuff to do in Mission Beach... ah, well.) The hostel people seemed really unconvinced that I could survive a 10 km hike. Seriously, guys? That's about what, 8 miles? That's NOTHING.

The guy who drove me out there gave me this long lecture about "are you sure you want to do this? Do you have enough water? It's going to be too hot for you." (It wasn't, it was a really nice day). There was a guided 'wildlife tour' he was giving, and he tried to get me to go to that instead, which was annoying. Also 'warnings' he gave me: "your feet will get wet, the bridges are out. watch out for hanging branches, they have thorns. take a mobile phone and our number in case you get in trouble..." It turns out it was a reasonably-well-traveled path, no big obstacles or anything. Honestly, I'm an adult, I can walk down a path DESIGNED FOR PEOPLE TO WALK DOWN.

Once I shook the hostel people, though, the path was really nice. It was a nice day, and I had a good walk.

ALSO! I saw a cassowary! They're endangered, and they're one of the things that my overly-attentive nanny/hostel guy warned me about. "If you see a cassowary, back away slowly... don't come between a baby cassowary and its mother, etc." Apparently they actually are dangerous, though. They have NASTY looking claws, and my housemate says they bash people with their heads/beaks.

So I was a little concerned, but the cassowary stayed well off the path and didn't seem to notice me. There's a rather blurry picture on the photobucket. They're so big! This one was as tall as I am, at least. So that was a pretty awesome once-in-a-lifetime thing... and makes up for the lack of platypus sitings during my entire stay here in Australia.

Got back to the hostel, swam in the ocean. I found a coconut and split it open on the spike provided by the hostel for coconut gatherers, so I had a whole fresh coconut with my canned soup! And getting that husk off was WORK, let me tell you.

Ok, my ride's here, so I'm going to wrap this up.

Hung out on the beach for a few hours looking at the stars. Woke up early the next morning, stood in the ocean one last time, then caught the bus back.

Here's the few pictures I did take. LEAVING AU GOT TO GO BYE!!