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Published: March 19th 2007
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After Michelle left at the crack of dawn for home, I moved onto Mission Beach. It's a very small coastal town - very beautiful, like all the places i have been and will be! I stayed at a hostel called Scotty's - very chilled and friendly. I didn't get many pictures of the actual beach because every time i had time to take pictures, it would mysteriously start pouring. It didn't actually rain too much while i was there, but when it did, it was a torrential downpour! Like most areas up here, you can't swim in the water either because it's stinger season.
My first night there i met a couple of crazy (!) Aussie's that worked either at the guesthouse, or around (i heard a lot of complaints / injuries with machetes while banana picking!) and i went out for dinner with them at a pub and i tried kangaroo for the first time. Believe it or not, it was actually pretty delicious - it kind of tasted like steak. Highly recommend it 😊
Since i knew coming in i wasn't going to be skydiving, i decided to try white water rafting. (Mission Beach is a big
place for skydiving - Emily did her jump here). I've never been white water rafting, but now i know that back home i'm going to be finding some place to do it! We rafted down the Tully River, which is grade 3-4 class rapids (apparently grade 5 is crazy and you can't commercially raft grade 6) so we had some wild rides! My group was two guys from California, and a dad and his two sons from just south of Sydney. They always wanted to flip the boat, or do the most risky possible travel down the rapid...it was soooo fun! There were cameramen filming us along the way, and when they showed us the video afterwards we were the opening scene, and the closing one as well - at one point we all sat at the front of the boat and did a steep drop down the river, and our boat hung suspended in mid-air with us all at the bottom trying to tip it upside down - it looked incredible on film. A lot of the time on the tamer parts of the river we got to get out and swim - although one rapid we did i
couldn't breathe the entire way down because waves kept hitting me in the face...it was pretty crazy. Very beautiful as well - there is dense forest on the banks of the river, and you can see the mountains in the distance.
From Mission Beach i moved onto Magnetic Island. It was pouring rain so loudly the morning i packed up that i thought the roof was going to fall in. Thankfully the weather got better the further south i went. I stayed at a place called Bungalow Bay, and they have a wildlife sanctuary here with koalas, snakes, crocodiles, etc. I went on a little tour of the sanctuary, and did the whole touristy thing of holding a crocodile, holding a lizard, holding a snake, and getting my picture taken with a koala. It was sooooo cheesy but i had to do it anyways 😊 The picture turned out pretty good (I got two free photos that they printed and framed for me), but i tried to get this guy to take a picture with my camera, and he obviously didn't know how to work cameras so i didn't get a photo of that one and therefore you're gonna
have to wait until i get home to see it!
I hiked around Magnetic Island a lot...it's very beautiful, just going from bay to bay and beach to beach. One of my roomies was a German girl named Stephanie, and i ran into her near Arcadia (about an hour walk from where we were staying in Horseshoe Bay) and we ended up talking so long we had to walk back in the dark! (It was pretty scary walking the trails in the dark!) but she was super nice, and even made me a spaghetti dinner when we got back 😊
Now it's onto Airlie Beach! Because my sailing trip doesn't leave until Tuesday, i'm here for two nights - then on the boat until Thursday. I'm really excited! I've never been sailing before - and i can't wait to see Whitehaven Beach (i think that's what it's called - it's supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world).
Cheers!!!!
Linds 😊
ps if i got cut off before my phone call ended at Mariah's birthday, i love and miss you guys and i can't wait to see you!
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Grandma Donna
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We love you and miss you
I'm so glad you're having a great time and trying so many new things. We love the pictures and enjoy reading all of your adventures. Miss you, bye for now.