NORTH QLD ADVENTURE - DAY 11 – ON THE MOVE TO MISSION BEACH…

 We are on the move again today heading further north.  We said goodbye to Ian and Kathy this morning as they headed further south.  They are off to explore the Paluma National Park and we are heading north to check out the beaches around Mission Bay.

We didn’t have a big drive today.  Mission Beach is only 125kms north of where we were staying at Taylor’s Beach.

After packing up and saying out goodbyes we pulled out of the caravan park around 9.30am heading towards Cardwell where we planned to stop for morning tea…

Cardwell, a coastal town on Rockingham Bay, is about midway between Townsville and Cairns. When proclaimed as a town in 1864 it was a remote and isolated site chosen as a port for transporting livestock from an emerging inland pastoral industry.

The drive from Ingham to Cardwell is really pretty and we arrived in Cardwell around 10.30am.  As we were not in a hurry we decided to stop and explore the foreshore of Cardwell.   We parked our car and van along with many others with the same idea along the beach front and then Steve and I went for a nice walk out along the jetty.  It was blowing a bit of a gale, but other than that it was a perfect day with the sun shining.

The Cardwell we saw today was very different to the Cardwell we visited in 2013.  Back in 2011 it was hit by the category 5 cyclone Yasi which devastated the town.  When we were last there, they were working on rebuilding the foreshore and the new jetty was built then.

After walking the jetty, we stopped in at the Vivia Café for morning tea.  They had advertised crab sandwiches so this was our destination as we ordered one to share along with a Mango, Guava and Lychee Frappe.  We sat out on their table and chairs on the footpath so that we could enjoy the sea views whilst we enjoyed our morning tea and then took off for a walk along the foreshow to photograph some of the icons of Cardwell, including the “Big Crab” and big chairs, artwork and sculptures that are proudly displayed along here…   

 

 

 

While I was photographing some of the icons, Steve ducked into the Bakery and picked up a couple of pies to take with us for lunch… We had heard good things about the Cardwell pies, so thought we would give them a try.  They didn’t disappoint.   Whilst at Cardwell, we rang ahead and booked ourselves into the Tropical Hibiscus Caravan Park at Wongaling at Mission Beach.

 

From Cardwell we had a further 60 odd kilometres to reach our destination and we arrived around 12.30pm.  By the time we had set up and eaten our lunch it was after 2pm.

It was quite hot, so I finally managed to convince Steve that we needed to have a dip in the beautiful pool here at the park before we headed out to explore the surrounds.  The water in the pool was really quite cold, but we enjoyed the swim, we spent more time doing stretches etc.  We were only in the pool for about half an hour…

Our set up at Wongaling Beach...

It was closer to 4pm before we managed to get going.  First, we headed down along the foreshore at Wongaling to check out the beaches there before heading down to South Mission Beach.

Another big Aussie Icon at Mission Beach - The Big Cassowary...

This area is a very pretty area of the coast, although there is not a lot of foreshore driving. It seems that lots of houses are built right on the shore line…  We did stop to get some photos of Dunk Island from South Mission beach; we also found a nice walk that we will try and do over the next few days.

From South Mission beach we headed back towards our van park before then continuing up along the coast to visit Mission Beach itself.  The only way to access the beach here is along walkways to the beach.  There is not a lot of beach as the water comes right up the bank.  There were lots of lovely little eateries tuck away in back streets.  

From Mission Beach we headed further north and checked out Clumb Point.  There was supposed to be a lookout there but it wasn’t that impressive as far as lookouts go.  Also, the boat ramp in this area is closed at the moment so we weren’t even able to check this out.  Continuing up the coast we drove around the water’s edge along Narragon Beach and Bingil Bay, this was a very pretty drive and this top us right up to the end of the road at Garners Beach, which really is where the rainforest meets the reef.  The sun had set by now so it wasn’t the time to take photos.  We decided then and there that we needed to come back and visit this area on Friday again, as we haven’t yet explored Brookes Beach.

It was almost dark as we left here and we still needed to go to Woolies and do a bit of a grocery shop before heading home…

We quickly ducked into Woolies to stock up, mostly bread and a bit of fruit before heading back to the van park.  Fortunately, I didn’t have to worry about dinner to much tonight as we had dropped into Julie’s Pasta in Ingham and bought some homemade authentic Italian Rivoli and Bolognaise Sauce which we had planned to have for dinner for the next couple of nights.

It was 7.30pm by the time we arrived home, time for a dinner, and the night was spent relaxing, watching a bit of Netflix and photo editing before retiring for the evening…