Day 9 - Mission Beach

So all good things must come to an end and we found ourselves on our last day in Mission Beach, taking it easy for our big drive back the following day. Which, by the way, I had us leaving at 4am to make sure we photographed all the big things on the way home!

We decided to visit Lacey Creek one last time for a swim, this time, going the less extreme jungle/spider web way and more the, 'pull up in the car park walk a few metres and dive into the water' way.

I also wanted to see the beach that, one last time...

By this time it was lunch and also New Years Day so we were lucky to find Millers open, right on the beach front

They served the yummiest pizza

maybe made yummier by my cocktail!

We drove back to Carmen's place and packed, but not before stopping in at one of the neighbouring banana farms. Unbeknown to me at the time, banana prices were cheap everywhere but I was all excited cause I thought I had hit the jackpot!

2 banana breads later and I'm still happy with my purchase. By the way has anyone ever tried to freeze ripe banana's? I did and let me tell you, what happens...the skin goes black in the freezer, you get them out to defrost and they defrost into this weird slimy mush. I googled and they're okay to eat, actually they are perfect for banana bread because you don't have to mash them up, but oh my goodness the texture is insane..slimy jelly and completely non appetising

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North Qld Day 3 - Lacey Creek

On Carmen's recommendation we decided to go check out Lacey Creek in Mission Beach. We kind of went down the wrong path and ended up in the middle of the rainforest. Well sort of,  we were still on a well defined track but I don't think it got a lot of use and thus every few steps you would encounter a spider web, smack bang, in your face!
(I let Ben go first :P)

You can probably see by Ben's arms it was super hot and humid, I'd say it's the most I've ever sweated in my life so we were pretty stoked that after a few km's of trekking we came to this...

North Qld beaches might suck due to stingers but there waterholes are amazing, we often found ourselves with no one around either, which was magical!

We ventures on to discover lots of butterflies

and fan palms, a speciality up north!

The Ulysses butterfly, which is a bit of a icon up here, I guess cause they are super pretty and blue!
Did I mention there are a LOT of butterflies up North, which I loved :)

And one of the many amusing signs up north!

So that was our morning, our afternoon was filled with Spanish castles :)
weeeeeee

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Day 2 Nth Qld - Tully

So on Christmas Day we woke up and opened gifts, I got the most amazing gift from the Glynn's

Just look at that presentation..gasp!

I was also surprised with a beautiful photo book that Ben put together for me :)

So after getting our Christmas cheer on we knew nothing would be open today but nature so we decided to take advantage of that and headed to Murray Falls which is close to Tully which is a town back from Mission beach *breathes out*

The town of Tully

It just so happens that Tully has a giant gumboot and so begins my mission to photograph all the big things in QLD! Or at least all the big things along the coastline. So why does Tully have a giant golden gumboot you ask? Well a rubber gumboot use to be awarded to the town with the highest rainfall in Australia, Tully is always up there with the winners and thus they took the small rubber gumboot to the extreme! I guess you could say extreme gloating!

What I like about this 7.9 metres high boot is that you can actually go inside of it. Ben and I have constructed a big things rating system and this is one of the scoring musts! More on that later though!

and one for good measure, found this highly amusing, me in gumboots standing in front a giant gumboot :P
amazing, no?

We then drove past the thriving Tully banana trees, at the time I was thinking why on earth was Brisbane's banana prices so high when there was clearly an abundance here and being sold so cheaply (on returning home I found out that banana are cheap everywhere!)

anyhoo we arrived at murray falls

such a lovely place

lots of birds

and butterflies

and the loveliest water to swim in

After exploring and getting wet on this amazingly hot and humid day we headed back into Mission beach to get a snap with Mission's own big thing..why yes the big cassowary

Ben got beeped by some guys in a car whilst posing for this shot :P

We stumbled across some more cassowary action in Mission Beach

but unfortunately no real cassowary sightings :(
The signs get you all excited but then majorly let down when you don't see any

That night we curled up to watch the Bill Murray scrooged film, I had never seen it but it was awesome! We also went on a failed frog mission in Carmen's yard and played with sparklers.

I have to say the perfect way to finish off Christmas!

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Day 1 - Mission Beach

So still on some high-holiday-sleep-deprived buzz we decided to head down to the beach. How to describe Mission beach? The town has a north and south side, with both sides consisting of only a few main streets, they do have a Woolworths though so it's not a really really small town, but I think it's just lovely. The beach although beautiful, comes out second compared to the sunny coast, mainly because there are deadly stingers in the water meaning you're stuck to swimming in the stinger nets...boo!

You might be able to tell I shot a mix between film and digital this trip. Shooting film is my favourite but digital allows you to go nuts! Which is always fun!

We took this picture of a cassowary sign, on the way back home. I remember seeing this sign when I was last here in 2009, actually when I first drove into Mission with Emaya and Norway, it was dark and we were all freaked that this car sized beast would come out and hit us, kind of had the same feeling this time! Ben was unconvinced a cassowary could be as big as the sign was making out but I was thinking, emu's are pretty big and maybe cassowaries are bigger!

An interesting fact, there are only 1000 cassowaries left in all of Australia. There are endangered and thus there are a lot of signs and safety precautions around. Mission beach is one of the prime locations for cassowaries, just last year Mission Beach was devastated by cyclone Yasi, I could really see how much destruction it had caused, trees stripped, so bare, even a year after the area was hit. Of course the cyclone was bad news for the ever disappearing cassowary population so they did fruit drops for them...how cute! In 2009 I didn't get to see a cassowary, maybe we did this trip!! he he

So that was our first day in North Queensland, Christmas Eve and boy oh boy did we sleep good that night!

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