From Mission Beach, after gorging at Tully

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We tore ourselves away from Rollingstone yesterday morning and continued north - a nice drive through sugar cane country

We arrived in the sugar mill town of Tully. We had never been to Tully Gorge so decided that we'd drive the 40 klms west of Tully and have a look, a pretty drive with very healthy looking bananas lining each side of the road. I think in the wet the Tully river is a raging torrent, but at this time it's just a little stream with a few areas of rapids and lots of rocks - all very pretty.

We ignored the WARNING, ACHTUNG! sign that is found in all the far northern rivers and walked to the river bank, hoping there really weren't crocodiles around. We found three young local boys who'd just swum in the river, gamer than me but they all still had the right number of arms and legs. It was hot so the temptation to ignore the signs is strong. We drove back to Tully, known as the town with the most rainfall in Australia - their 'big' icon is the tall golden gumboot, adorned with green frog, that sits in a park in town. Lucky for us, we've had nothing but sunshine and warm weather, but I wouldn't like to be there in the wet.

On then to Mission Beach where we booked into a caravan park for the night. Last time we were here they were recovering from Cyclone Larry and the beach and surrounds were quite a mess. Now it's all cleaned up and the hills look lush once more. There are quite a few islands in view from Mission Beach, Dunk Island being the biggest and just opposite the beach. I think all that's on it is a resort - some time we'll go over to have a look ... another thing we added to the long list of 'on the way back'.

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Photos

The big gumboot
Another town with Australia's penchant for 'big things'
http://www.travelmate.com.au/BigThings/BigThings.asp