Day 30: In Mission Beach

The cloud cover from yesterday has persisted over night, and even culminated into rain: during the night and throughout the morning rain has steadily fallen. Coupled with the strong winds, it means going out to sea is definitely not nice.

Mission Beach is proud to have the shortest commute from land to the Great Barrier Reef, and at about 40 minutes it is less than half of the time needed to travel from Cairns to the Reef. Because of this short commute, this town pretty much revolves around the Coral Sea and the Reef, without many alternatives. And so we decided to sleep in and tour the surrounding area by car this morning. We have searched for the elusive Cassowary, but it didn’t show itself today. We did find a lone male Agile Wallaby in town, who didn’t mind us watching him graze on the grass next to the road.

After lunch, the rains lifted and the cloud cover has become a little less dense. We found ourselves on the Wongaling Beach waterfront, walking the beach itself. Suddenly our eyes spotted some unusually shaped rocks in the sand, and upon further inspection they proved to be dead coral which had washed ashore! That is so weird! The stuff is strangely beautiful, and we created a “collage” on the beach, with the tropical island Dunk Island as its backdrop. We have spent quite some time on the beach, but afterwards decided to sit on our porch back at the resort with a nice cup of tea to get out of the wind.

Tomorrow, we have to drive all the way down to Airlie Beach, which is about 500km. The weather over there should be better, as the forecast in Mission Beach says the same as today for the next week, whereas Airlie Beach will have sun!