Shores Mission Beach

... to speed walk through the tree covered area, once we were clear and onto the road up to the viewpoint, we thought we would be safe, we looked up and could see spider webs going across the road from tree to tree! We have since decided that the Eco Rainforest place probably isn't the best place for us to ever stay at and we will skip it and avoid the whole area from now on.<br><br>We then started the ...

... plenty of motels and B &amp; B's - unbeknown to us there was a big celebration going on in the tablelands - near Mareeba and our chosen and recommended Motel was full - with nothing much around to go at! Decided to just keep going and see what turned up - towards Kuranda and then onto Cairns. Eventually as dusk was falling we decided to pay a visit to the Coconut Camp Site that we'd visited previously in the hope ...

... place and we were strangely reminded of our home area of Chapel Allerton; the same mixture of bars, cafes and a bit of community life (but Chapel A weather is a little crisper than it is here). However, we were surprised to get the first real, if intermittent, rain since we came to Australia, an extra inconvenience as we were trying to dry out our dive gear! We therefore spent a bit of time laying stuff out in the sun then rushing to shove it all back in the van ...

Mission Beach<br><br>Today I made the long drive from Cooktown south to Mission Beach this entailed retracing my steps through Atherton and Cairns, apart from a the section between Katherine and Darwin this is hopefully the only time I will have to retrace from now on I continue southwards all the way to Melbourne.<br><br>As I drove through Atherton I spotted a Suburu dealer and managed to replace the headlight protector broken on the way to ...

... it would have been the type of scenery you see in the travel books. Having stopped at the tourist information we headed onwards for the last mile to the retreat. Then just as we approached the final turn off we got to see a juvenile Cassowary cross the road&#8230;So young it was still ...

... an endangered species with less than 1500 left in the wild. It's excretions are critical to the maintenance of the rainforest system which it inhabits (you know that fact will be in the boys' journals though in more colourful language) so its survival is very important. Alas, no sightings except for the painted version on the road signs.<br>We next head inland to experience something other than beautiful beaches--and perhaps spot a Cassowary along the way.<br>

... looked amazing. we signed our lives away, again, and watched a couple of dvds of peoples jumps. looked like so much fun, but was maybe starting to get a bit nervous! i met my tandem guy, who was a cool bloke called paul from nz. it was reassuring that he had done thousands of jumps in his time, and i loved the fact that he knew a fair bit about liverpool and the prem. we had a bit of a briefing about what we needed to do, got strapped into our snuggly fitting ...

... felt as if it was just you going down a slide into the water head first :-). We had lunch after a couple more hair raising rapids. It was an amazing BBQ feast of burgers, sausages and salad - definitely well earned after all that paddling. We got back on the water fairly quickly and set off down the river again. At various points the Tully River was met by other creeks and waterfalls which were beautiful and also meant that more and more water ...

... countries seem to go about their preparation of edible and drinkable things. I was happy to just be in normality again. So much so, that when ordering and then tucking into my beer and a packet of crisps in a civilized environment, I was so overwhelmed that I found myself mumbling and quietly laughing to myself, in the manner of that of someone who lives in a bus station. However nobody was really paying attention, until maybe the bill was produced to me and in the ...

... was heading off to Cairns for a couple of days off. Sleep...if you dare. The experience of sleeping in a forest with only a mesh curtain between you and every conceivable bit of Australian wildlife was amazing - the sounds and atmosphere, though exhilirating, were calming and sleep was easy. Of course the morning sunrise brought a whole new cacophony of orchestral wildlife. I'll never forget it - I think I've conquered many fears here - I'd never have ...