Advertisement
Published: November 18th 2012
Edit Blog Post
Since living in Cairns, we have always wanted to visit the popular Mission Beach. To celebrate Brad's birthday, we booked a couple of nights staying at a B&B in Wongaling Beach (just South of Mission Beach). We found out long after booking this accommodation that the total solar eclipse was to happen in Cairns while we were down there, and Mission Beach was expected to only see a partial eclipse. Ahhh the irony of actually living in Cairns where the total solar eclipse was happening, but accidentally planning a trip to take us out of the total eclipse zone for that particular day.
We arrived at our accommodation at about 7pm, having left after work from Cairns. The place is called Boutique Bungalows, and I couldn't recommend this place highly enough to anyone planning a trip in that direction. We were welcomed by the owners with big smiles and plenty of advice of what to do around the place during our stay. They both saw us to our bungalow, carried our bags and left us to drool over a delicious home baked chocolate macadamia slice with fresh strawberries and cream for our dessert! We were spoilt from the moment we
arrived. There are 3 bungalows there and they are all secluded from one another with beautiful rainforest plants and animals surrounding each one. The corrugated iron on the roof provided us a lovely rain soundtrack as we slept that night. We really felt we were in the middle of the rainforest, miles away from anyone! The rooms were new, spacious, clean and well furnished with a king sized bed! We were impressed from the moment we walked through the door and this continued for our entire stay!
The next morning, woken by the rainforest birds we went off to enjoy our buffet breakfast and freshly brewed coffee. The owners came and sat with us, telling us stories of the rebuild after cyclose Yasi and their wildlife rescue service which they have since been running. We ate our delicious cooked breakfast, of which I ate too much as is tradition with anything buffet. The owner then offered us a cuddle with a baby wallaby, rescued from its mother's pouch after an accident on the road. My goodness, it was adorable and we sat there for a good half an hour enjoying the experience and chat with the owners.
That
day we checked out the beaches, which were beautiful and secluded and had lunch in Mission Beach. The actual town of Mission Beach is much smaller than I expected. It was quite lovely, with only a few cafe's and shops run and owned locally. We decided to drive to "Muff Creek", where we planned to throw in a line. However, a few other people had the same idea and there didn't seem to be any room in the 'croc safe' area so instead we settled for making a few inappropriate puns about the name, had a giggle and headed back. We decided to head back to our bungalow and enjoy a relaxing afternoon in. We watched the DVD 'a perfect storm' while listening to the rain outside, it was quite appropriate, really. While the movie was slightly depressing, far fetched and had really bad special effects - we still enjoyed the experience. Our afternoon tea was delivered by the owner, homemade carrot cake - delicious! We felt like kids in a lolly shop!
That night we went for a stroll along the beach, which is only a 5 minute walk away from the accommodation. We picked out a spot
to watch the PARTIAL solar eclipse the next morning and picked up some champagne and cheese on the way back to enjoy on our porch. At 7pm we were picked up by our free escort, which took us to Miller's Restaurant - a beautiful bar/restaurant which is right on the beach. The meal was amazing, beautifully cooked steak with red wine and a chocolate dessert to top it off. Our free escort took us back to our accommodation slightly tipsy and we had another beautiful night listening to the rain on the corrugated iron roof.
The next morning we were up bright and early (and hungover) for the solar eclipse! We sat on the beach, waiting and hoping the clouds would disappear. Sadly, the clouds blocked our view for the whole time and we were unable to use our trendy solar eclipse glasses! The disappointment of missing the eclipse was topped off by a local who wandered past and said, ''oh, its such a shame. Last week the sun was as clear as anything rising up over the water''. Hmphh! Alas, we enjoyed the 2 minutes of darkness that surrounded us at the moment of total solar eclipse. We could only imagine how magical the sun would look at that moment. The closest we were going to get to seeing the total solar eclipse was the picture on a $1 post card that I had bought from the market to send to my parents and make them jealous. Had I but known! The atmosphere was still great at the beach, with tourists and locals alike all waiting for a glimpse of this once in a lifetime event. At least we could all share our disappointment together. We selfishly hoped that Cairns had experienced the same cloud cover so that we didn't have to listen to the stories on Monday morning, like daggers to our hearts! Everyone at Mission Beach agreed to make ourselves feel better, no-one would have seen it - surely the cloud cover went all the way up to the Cape!
After returning to our bungalow for a shower, we promptly switched off the tv after we saw the Today show broadcasting from Cairns, thousands of happy people beaming about the sight they had just seen. The clouds had parted in Cairns just in time for the total solar eclipse. Just our luck! We ignored texts from friends asking us how amazing we found the eclipse. We enjoyed another delicious breakfast and cuddle with the wallabies. The hosts then gave us a few maps and ideas of things to check out on our way back up the Cairns. We told them we would recommend their bungalows to everyone, so here I am, telling you all to get there if you have a chance. There have been nothing but wonderful reviews from everyone who has stayed there and I can see why! It is an experience in itself and you will not find hospitality, warmth and absolute value for money like this in many other places.
On the way back to Cairns, we checked out Alligator's Nest just outside of Tully. Contrary to its name (apart from the fact that we have no Alligators in Australia), this place is a beautiful swimming hole with NO CROCODILES! That is a rare find in FNQ and it was sensational. The water was so refreshing on a warm FNQ day, and the butterflies and birds flying around really added to the ambience. The place is a big park and has BBQ's, vast grass areas, toilets and tables. We will be returning there one day to have a BBQ and croc-free relax, it was just gorgeous!
Next, we went to Innisfail botanical gardens where we fed bread roll to the freshwater turtles (and even some eels) in the lakes there. These gardens are also huge with plenty of places to eat lunch in the shade and enjoy the surrounds. Brad really enjoyed this part of our trip and smiled like a 6 year old when he saw the turtles popping their heads up for a feed! I think he was possibly more excited than the group of 10 year olds that there were on a school excursion.
And so concluded our trip to Mission Beach and surrounds. We headed back home to Cairns and braced ourselves for stories of the wondrous total solar eclipse. One of our neighbours told us she had seen it from her toilet window. We went all the way to Mission Beach and we could have watched a total solar eclipse from her toilet. It is now an ongoing joke at work, apparently Mission Beach is one of the wettest places on Earth and we were crazy to try and watch the eclipse there. Us Victorians had no idea of this though - rookie error!
In all seriousness though, we really enjoyed our stay at Boutique Bungalows and will probably head back there one day!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.076s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0511s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb