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Published: September 15th 2012
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Our next stop was Mission Beach, a very chilled out area that’s made up of five small beachside settlements. Upon our arrival, we went for a little drive to discover the area and promptly decided to stay put at Mission Bay Skydivers. This place is ace! The dropzone has teamed up with the backpacker’s hostel and together they call themselves a “skydiving resort”. And that’s essentially what they are! You don’t have to be up for throwing yourself out of a plane to stay there though – the caravan park is very affordable and we learnt that lot of people who plan to stay for just a couple of nights end up staying for six months! There are even homegrown salad vegetables and herbs that you can help yourself to, so I didn’t waste any time and cooked up some coconut & basil chicken and some thyme & lemon basil salmon. Yum. The beach is literally a 100m stroll across the road, where you can watch the tandems land. We really need to get our display licenses so that we can land on a beach too! Thanks to the gorgeous Adrianna told us for making us so welcome at the dropzone.
We’d have loved to stay a while longer.
When we went for a cycle to the other areas of Mission Beach we came across the loveliest beachside café. There really was no need to continue to anywhere else, so we just spent some time relaxing there.
On our way out of Mission Beach the following morning (our seventh anniversary woo hoo – congrats to us!) we kept passing road signs warning us about the cassowaries. Australia’s “most dangerous bird” is not one that you’d want to have a collision with. We kept looking out for them and eventually one crossed the road in front of us. Thankfully we had enough time to brake and to grab the camera!
Our next stop was nearby Paronella Park. I would’ve bypassed this if Dean hadn’t picked up a leaflet about it and suggested we go there. It’s something a little different. Set in 13 acres, it’s the brainchild of Spaniard José Paronella who came to Australia in the early 20
th century. José built up his wealth by buying, improving and selling neglected cane farms and, having bought this estate, realised his dream of creating
a pleasure park complete with Spanish style castles and a waterfall featuring Queensland’s first hydroelectric power station (20 years before anybody else in the area had access to electricity). Locals used to come here to have picnics, play tennis, go for walks amongst the tropical forests and go swimming (but not for us as a crocodile was recently spotted in the swimming hole!). In Dean’s words, it’s a bit like something out of the movie Avatar. Our entry tickets included a night’s stay in the park’s van park which we were quite happy with!
We went on two tours of Paronella Park: one during the day (during which we learnt all about the place’s history and the Paronella family) and one at nighttime (which was magical as the waterfall and several of the buildings were lit by floodlights).
I hit the books again in the afternoon (this time I replaced the cake and chocolate with a pot of delicious frozen mango) and learnt all about anatomy and physiology. I should really know about cells and tissues as that was covered at school but sadly I’ve forgotten most of it! Also, biology and chemistry were
never my strong areas, so I’m just going to have to do the best that I can.
Because of my studies, I may have to hand our travel blog over to Dean… I’ll miss it a lot and will have trouble letting go, but I’m not sure how to fit everything in otherwise. Perhaps we’ll just take it in turns to instead. You’ll certainly be able to tell who has written a blog entry as Dean has already stated that his entries will be picture books: rather than write about our adventures, the photos will tell the story!
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Gina
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Jackie, please please don't let Dean write the blog, I've seen his spelling and you will have to translate for everyone :) xx