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Published: June 21st 2009
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Happy Easter! As always, we're a little behind on our blogging, but better late than never...
Since Easter is a 4 day weekend here in Australia, we decided to take advantage of the free vacation time and head up to the Far North Queensland and finally see the tropics. We flew into Townsville on a Friday morning and over 4 days made our way up the coast, stopping along the way at Magnetic Island, Mission Beach, Cairns, Newell Beach, and the Daintree Rainforest. It was a spectacular trip, and we only wish we had more than 4 days to see it all!
We landed first thing in the morning in Townsville, and headed straight to the coast to catch a ferry out to Magnetic Island. Magnetic Island is quaint little island just off the coast, which boasts 340 days of sunshine a year. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and raining for the day that we were there! We took a hike up to of an old military lookout, and spotted several sleepy koalas just off the trail, as well as plenty of insects for matt - including a huge moth. After a day and night in magnetic island we headed
back to the mainland to start the drive north.
Its about a 4 hour drive from Townsville to Cairns, but we decided to take it slowly and stop for a night in the middle at a place called Mission Beach. Before we made it there though, we took a detour off the main road into Girringun National Park and drove up to Wallaman Falls. The highest sheer drop waterfall in Australia, Wallaman Falls is part of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. Not only were the falls spectacular, but we also saw some rare butterflies -- the Ulysees and Cairns Birdwing. It was a detour well worth the time spent, if you have an afternoon to spare - the drive through the park in itself was extremely scenic.
We kept traveling north from the falls, and stopped fo a coffee break in Cardwell, a sleep town sandwhiched between the national park and the coast line. Just off the coast, in what looks like swimming distance away, is Hinchinbrook Island. We took a break on the beach and looked out at the Island (part of the national park) and Matt decided to go for a walk past the high
tide line to look at hundreds of little gobies skimming across the top of the water on top of what looked like damp sand. Unfortunately for him, it was not damp sand, but thick sticky gray muck. whoops.
We finally made it up to Mission Beach in time to see the expansive flat, wide beach and tour around the little beachy town. It was a great place to spend the night, and if we had more time, would have been a great spot to relax for a few days. We a had a great dinner at a pizzeria near the beach, and had our first taste of Queensland local beer -- XXXX --- even served to us in a styrafoam coosie! After dinner we saw another queensland local...the cain toad. We now understand why everyone hates them here, there were so many that they practicaly jumped under your feet as you walked and hung out by the lights to catch all the bugs being attracted. But that didn't stop us from catching one and giving him a nice big kiss!
Ok, we're now on day 3 of our quick 4 day, 5 night road trip. Leaving from Mission
Beach around 5:30am on Sunday, we drove the last 2 hours north to Cairns. We arrived around 7:30, just in time to hop on our dive boat for a day trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. The trip out to the reef was a little rough and choppy, but that didn't have any affect on the diving. We were able to rent a camera from the dive boat, and the pictures speak for themselves...
We made it back to Cairns at about 5pm, thouroughly exhausted from our day out on the water (and from getting up at 5am!). But the day wasn't over just yet. Instead of staying in Cairns, which is a very touristy and unnatractive town, we hopped back in our car to drive another 1.5 hours north to the tiny beach town of Newell. Newell is about 30 minutes north of Port Douglas, and we had no idea what to expect. Thankfully, the bed and breakfast we found online did not dissapoint. Manta Ray Bed and Breakfast was a beautiful little thai style oasis that was tucked into this beach town and made you really forget where you were. It was a perfect launching point
for our adventure the following day up to the Daintree Rainforest.
The patch of Rainforest North of Newell Beach is accessed by a pully-controlled car ferry that crosses the Daintree River (which is loaded with Australia's largest animal, the saltwater crocodile). After a day of hiking through jungle trails eating little green ants that tasted like lemon, showing Heidi how to dig through decaying wood for beetle larvae, and visiting an entomological museum with an incredible collecton of lepidoptera (butterflies) and coleoptera (beetles) we made it back an hour before sunset for a croc cruise up the river. After seeing some baby crocs and a 2.5 meter long female (the male that patrolled the region hadn't been seen for a couple days), we headed back towards Cairns via Mosman Gorge for a short night near the airport before an early Monday morning flight back to Sydney where work awaited us both.
It was an incredible trip, but way too quick and we both felt like we needed to go back to do more on the reef and see more of the rainforest...so we just booked another trip to do a liveaboard 3 day diving trip out on the
reef and another day in the forest at the beginning of November with our good friends Josh and Aubrey Riggs, who are coming all the way out from Denver! We can't wait! More stories and pictures to follow...
Hope everyone is well and we will talk to you soon.
M & H
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Uncle John
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Great Photos
I want to try one or two of those lemon ants for desert! Pictures are great! What kind of camera did you borrow? Keep milking your free time and remember that the unemployment rate in CA is now 11.5 % and rising. Not much better in the remainder of the country. Cheeers.