Magnetic Island



We caught the large catamaran ferry to Magnetic Island (MI) and had a pleasant 20 min calm crossing. We were back packers for the day as we travelled by the local bus around the island. The Island is rugged & has 5 lovely bays. It has large areas of undeveloped bushland. We took our own snorkelling gear & snorkelled at Geoffrey Bay snorkel trail but visibility was poor so we didn't go far. We saw some white boulder corals, stag horn & lettuce corals but the water was murky. Hard to compare after the outer reef off Cairns which was so clear where we went. We then caught the bus and swam at Horseshoe Bay (our favourite spot on the island). Horseshoe Bay is very sheltered & has lots of boats and some tasty eateries. We had some locally made gelato, which was delicious. We caught the bus to all the bays and enjoyed exploring the island. Next time we would just hire a kayak at Horseshoe Bay and not bother snorkelling at MI. Other snorkelling spots required a steep, long walk to reach them. We enjoyed catching up with a Canberra friend, Jon, who was visiting the Island for the day. We saw lots of friendly rock wallabies at the old boat ramp at Geoffrey Bay. We finished a lovely day with a relaxing dinner outdoors at the resort watching the sunset.

Horseshoe Bay

Picnic Bay Jetty



Rock wallaby and joey

Friendly rock wallabies

Relaxing over dinner at Magnetic Island resort

Sunset at Magnetic Island

Mission Beach - 2nd visit

We have just had 6 relaxing days at Mission Beach Hideaway Caravan Park, which is adjacent to rainforest & just across the road from the Beach with nice views of Dunk Island. The caravan park has a lovely sunny pool & lots of coconut palms and ferns.  The sea was warm and gentle waves with 24kms of sandy beach. We regularly heard, and saw 2 blue winged kingfishers eating little crabs on the beach. We were thrilled to see cassowary's wandering between the bush and the road on several occasions, as they are endangered. They are up to 2 metres tall and eat tropical fruits. We found Mission Beach a lovely spot, with some shops, restaurants and cafes but not too developed or busy. It is surrounded by beautiful rain forest and some lovely rain forest shaded walks. Fan Palms grow up to 60 metres tall and 2 metres wide. We saw a big Monitor Lizard while doing the Fan Palm Walk. Others saw a cassowary on the Lacey Creek walk but we only saw butterflies and dragonflies.

 

Lacey Creek Walk - cassowary's come here.

Cassowary near Mark's Park, Tully Road, near Mission Beach

Fan Palm Walk  

Ready for Dinner at Mission Beach Resort

Etty Bay - near Cairns

Etty Bay is on the edge of a rain forest which is national park. Etty Bay is 110kms Sth of Cairns. It is a secluded, small, sheltered bay, great for swimming and kayaking. No internet, phone or TV but a beautiful spot and small caravan park. We could hear the ocean from our van here and had a good view until people parked in front of us. It has 4 cassowaries which regularly wander through the caravan park and beach.  We got to see one close up, which was a highlight after only seeing signs before. We would have liked to stay longer in this lovely spot. The Kiosk has yummy fish & chips with great view of the beach and ocean.  The beach & kiosk was damaged by cyclone Yasi 2 years ago in 2011, but now has been repaired.

 

 

relaxing at Etty Bay

secluded beach at Etty Bay

Our view at Etty Bay.

Cassowaries wander through the park here

Cassowary at Etty Bay



Bandicoot at Etty Bay caravan park

Beautiful Etty Bay 

Hartley Creek Crocodile farm - Cairns

We visited Hartley Crocodile Adventures, 40 kms from Cairns, on a hot day. John fondly remembered his visit there over 35 years ago. He still tells me how he thought they were stuffed and nearly patted one over a low fence. It is now a large well set out tropical zoo & small crocodile farm. We had a ranger feed salties chicken on a long bamboo rod. He then walked amongst freshies and fed those who came up to him. Don't know why they didn't try to bite him?? Maybe they weren't hungry.  We did a boat trip on the lagoon, where the driver dangled some chicken on a rod to some salties,  to get them to leap. He avoided the largest, oldest, croc as he could tip the boat. We watched a "croc attack" display, where a guy went in a small enclosure with just a rope with some chicken tied to it, which the croc bit, and got it to roll & snap! Crocs have the biggest pressure bite of any animal. They can also swim in shallow water without stirring the surface. They can also feel vibrations in the water with their jaw so can detect prey that way. Freshies, unlike salties, can run quite fast on land. We have even more reservations about them both now!

We had a tour of their croc farm which was small, only 4,000 crocs. Some farms raise tens of thousands of crocs. Must be a big demand for handbags. They keep them for 3 years then the skins  are sold to Italy to be made into expensive handbags. Crocs were nearly wiped out due to hunting for skins so farming prevents this happening.

We enjoyed seeing a snake handling demonstration, beware the venomous brown snake, the deadly box jelly fish (thankfully dead) with up to 3 metre tentacles, cassowaries, wallabies, koala's and a quoll.  

 

They can jump!

Get that chicken

Competition!

Keeping cool in the shade

Croc attack display! 

Cassowary, or emu with "drag"

Carnivorous quoll was fed mice

Cairns, Nth QLD

We had a wonderful trip to the outer reef of the Great Barrier Reef. We cruised out 50 kms on a fast catamaran to a pontoon, called Marine World, on Moore reef. It was very calm and visibility they told us, was the best you can get. No wind or sediment made snorkelling a delight. We went with Reef Magic who were excellent. They also include a trip on a glass bottom boat & a semi submersible boat which both had great views of the fish & coral as you need daylight to see the colours in the coral. We opted for an hour long guided snorkel with a marine biologist which was beautiful. There are 400 types of coral & 1500 fish species out here.  John relaxed when they told us the only sharks we are likely to see are reef sharks that usually swim away! John enjoyed having his optical mask and so saw more this trip than our last. We saw the edge of the outer reef and the highlight was seeing a green turtle close by. We also saw some smaller clams, sea cucumbers and some rarer clown fish amongst some soft coral. The snorkelling in the area around the pontoon was also great.

We stayed at the Big 4 Crystal Cascades Caravan Park which is at the base of the mountains, covered in rain forest. It is about 20 mins from the  CBD of  Cairns.

 

We had a relaxing swim in the warm sea at a sheltered, sandy beach called Palm Cove, about 20 mins north (Yes, it had lots of Palm trees). The water was about 23 degrees and felt a lot warmer than the pool in our van park!  Palm Cove had lots of resorts, boutique style shops all looking out to a coconut palm tree lined beach - a very pleasant way to spend some time.

 



 

Cairns foreshore pool

Feeding fish &  giant Maori Wrasse on Pontoon of "Reef Magic" trip

Great views  of coral  & fish from the submersible boat

Submersible boat

Plate & cabbage coral from glass bottom boat

Plate & staghorn coral -  orange colours are unusual



Plate & stag horn coral 

some of the 400 types of coral on outer reef



Plate corals   grow into large  table corals

Sheltered beach & warm seas  at  Palm cove

On the Jetty at Palm Cove

 

Mossman Gorge QLD





We visited Mossman Gorge again after 7 years and were surprised to see how popular it has become since our last visit. There were very few people here on our last visit but this time around there were people everywhere. We were told 300,000 visited last year. There is now a Visitors Centre at the entrance & café run by the local Aboriginal people. There is a shuttle bus which takes you 2 kms to the Gorge. Part of the admission fee is used for upkeep on the area. It is the world's oldest rain forest and the Mossman  river has the 2nd purist water in the world. We did a lovely 3.5 km walk up into the mountains. It seemed wetter here as we saw mosses which we didn't see in the Daintree. Last time we walked in the rain which was quite slippery but sunny this time. Some people swam in the river but it wasn't that hot walking in the rain forest. We were pleased to see some bright blue Ulysses's butterflies near the river.

 

 

Mossman River

Clear waters of the Mossman River

Huge oak trees

Rain forest at Mossman River

Salt water pool at Pinnacle Caravan Park, Wonga Beach

The Pinnacle at Wonga Beach - One of our favourite caravan parks

Mossman Gorge walk

Mosses growing in the shade - Mossman Gorge

Mossman Gorge walk

Suspension bridge  - Mossman Gorge



Mossman Gorge



Enjoying the Mossman  River

Daintree Rainforest QLD

We enjoyed staying at the Pinnacle caravan park at Wonga beach which was ideally located about 10 mins drive to the Daintree River Ferry & 20 mins drive to Mossman Gorge visitor centre. It is a very quiet park, a short walk to Wonga Beach, a small cove with coconut palms. The park had lovely shady trees & lots of birds. It was surrounded by rainforest which reminded us of staying in the Daintree, which we did 7 years ago. It also had a lovely salt water pool which was in the sun so one of our favourite parks.

We had a sunny day for our trip to the World Heritage Daintree Rainforest. Our previous visit, with Laura, was on a cloudy day. We caught the ferry and spent a relaxing day. We saw lots of signs warning of cassowaries but didn't see any.  We did  3 lovely  board walks, all with  different scenery, and had time for coffee at a café surrounded by the rainforest and locally made ice cream at the ice cream café gardens. The ice cream was flavoured with locally grown tropical fruits, eg: banana, coconut & chocolate pudding plant, and was delicious.

View from lookout to sea & Daintree river.

Daintree River, where the rainforest meets the reef.

Walking the board walk

Lush rainforest

Tree ferns

Huge trees and creepers

Palms & people share the boardwalk here

Huge tree palms up to 2 metres wide

View of Cape Tribulation

Peaceful Wonga Beach