Mission Beach

The pics above were taken from our caravan park (another Big 4) in South Mission Beach.  While the park itself has been cleaned up beautifully, the sites on one side of the park back on to what was once a rainforest. This was the view outside our van. In fact it was right behind our van. How sad, its just smashed and I guess they plan to leave it that way and let nature regenerate the vegetation. Sinora Mission Beach, we hope you're in better shape next time we visit.

Up early this morning for a run along the beach. And what a view.  It was beautiful looking out across the Coral Sea to Dunk and Bedarra Islands.   The caravan park is directly across the road from South Mission Beach and almost begs you to get your shoes on and do something.  And there were plenty doing exactly that.  Back to the caravan and the Gremlins were surfacing and trying to escape.  The playground was calling and Zachie was desperate to sneak away, which he managed on more than one occasion. Arghhh.  First stop today the monthly “Monster Markets”, which were pretty good for country markets.  Fresh fruit and veg particularly avocados bananas and pineapples, seafood, hippie things, home made clothes, baby stuff, hand carved wooden furniture.  Rotary were working hard flipping burgers and a couple of stalls were selling Asian goodies.  We all had a home made cannoli from a Sicilian lady from Innisfail filling them on the spot.  They were yum but Rick kindly said mine are better. The kids washed it down with delicious banana smoothie and Zachies belly was bulging over his pants.  Boy can that kid eat, and it shows.  We headed off to Tully 20 minutes down the road for lunch.  Tully took the full force of the cyclone and the houses were belted.  Many still had tarps and loads had new roofs.  Some were completely stripped out by the wind and a couple of streets were just decimated.  It was painful to see and I felt uncomfortable taking photos and video footage.  The town itself is pretty uneventful and there were lots of dodgy people hanging around, so we decided to eat lunch in the car on the way to Innisfail.  Innisfail snakes along a wide river, which a local said is home to many croc’s.  It was pretty along the waterfront and had the odd watering hole to settle in at including a sweet old boat doing lunch that looked popular with the locals. The kids had a play in the playground and scooter along the foreshore.  We drove through the main street and CBD area.  All good.  Back home via Mission Beach for a walk along the beach.  Its just lovely and there were lots of people soaking up the sun including a few guys hooning along in blowcarts.  Maxie was in awe. We stopped at the Surf Club just at the end of our street for a beer.  We were the only ones there sadly.  So back to the park for a play and to chill out.  The kids made some new friends and we struggled to get them inside for dinner.  Home made sushi for them and divine prawn and scallop pasta for us when the kids were asleep.  A great day.