Wongaling Beach

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I consider buying a vehicle - a minivan with a mattress - but, reading the want ads and notice boards, I find prices are far too high and even motorcycles are too expensive. Many backpackers travel by bus but I choose a rail pass instead as it gives me a little more leg room and I can get up, walk around, go to the dining car when I wish.

I begin moving south by heading for Mission Beach, travelling through a broad river valley, past palm trees and sugar cane and banana fields with blue and gryy/silver bags hanging on each tree where the fruit grows. Low hills slope up on either side of the valley, bearded green with rainforest. They run in long ridges beside us, reminding me of the Jura in Switzerland.

Although the area is called Mission Beach, I'm actually on nearby Wongaling Beach. Mission Beach, Wongaling Beach and South Mission Beach together cover 14km and are nearly deserted. Waves beat a steady, liquid rhythm on the shore while Dunk Island slumbers just off the coast. There's not much here at Wongaling Beach. It's largely residential with a supermarket, a bottle store, a couple of restaurants. There's no central business district. That's in nearby Tully which makes this something of a bedroom community. Tully's main industries are bananas and sugar cane processing.

I'm staying at Absolute Backpackers' Hostel and it's clean and quiet with friendly people so you can mix in immediately if you want to. I meet Ami from Germany, Kiki from Denmark, Kate from the UK, Marlou from Holland and...surprise for me...Elizabeth from Thunder Bay, now living in Halifax.

Australia reminds me of Canada in many ways with its open spaces, wide streets, bungalows, lawns and driveways. Australian friendliness is similar to what you find in Canada, too. It's different from the deferential welcome that I found in Asia and not at all like Europe'sa stiff, formally polite welcome.

Lots of adrenalin activity here. You can go skydiving and whitewater rafting. I choose the latter and Ami and Marlou come along, too. Our bus drives us up into the hills past Australia's biggest banana plantation to a hydroelectric dam on the Tully River.

We don yellow life vests and red helmets and step into yellow and black raft. The others in the raft are Bert and Nathalie from Belgium and Tyler from the US. Our guide, Pat, comes from New Zealand and he's funny and endlessly entertaining with stories about the names for the rapids or things along the shoreline. He also takes digs at the Australians as part of the endless Kiwi/Aussie rivalry. We paddle when he says Forward paddle team! or Back paddle team! We crash over rapids and small falls, capsize once, eat a barbied lunch at midday. The water is cool but not cold and as long as the sun is out we don't mind being wet. There are a dozen rafts on the river and we spash each other with our paddles, laughing in fun.

On the return to Mission Beach we see an adult cassowary with chicks at the side of the highway. This is a huge bird with a black body, blue neck, white head and black beak and it's the male that raises the chicks, not the female. They grow to nearly two metres tall, have long, razor sharp claws and a bony protruberance growing out of the top of the head. If you torment them, as two very stupid tourists did recently, they can kill you with their talons, which is what happened to one of the two stupid tourists. It is the third-largest bird in the world after the ostrich and the emu.

I stay here for several days, enjoying barbies in the evening, making regular trips to Woolies just around the corner for kangaroo steaks and to the bottle store across the street for good Australian wine. I could stay longer, but that will cut into whatever I might want to do further south in Australia, so it's time to move on.

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Photos

Wongaling Beach
14km long and nearly devoid of people.

Dunk Island
As seen from Wongaling Beach.

On the beach
Just hangin' out.

Getting a bit artsy here
Someone's influence, suggesting a different approach, one that might include more faces, too.

Red and blue
More...ummm...art.