August 14 - 16. Mission Beach. Adequately Accomplished.

We arrive at a friendly Big4 after closing time, and the manager is still there to sort us out. We now have a powered site, and while we don’t have the space and the luxurious facilities that the originally booked campsite had, everything is adequate and more than appreciated. We have a comfort dinner with bolognaise on fresh pasta, a couple of Matso’s Ginger Beers and an early night. You can never take for granted what you are going to get, even if you have been there before.

Our first full day at Mission Beach promised a beautiful morning but rain late afternoon. We start with a visit into Mission Beach central. I have high hopes given that it’s 14km of beaches are stunning that maybe they have a swimming area netted off there. Apart from the spectacular sight of skydivers landing on the beach, we find the town quite sterile. A lot of it newly built, and to be honest, a bit try hard. It doesn’t quite have the money of Palm Cove, and no charm of Port Douglas. We high tail it out of there and head to Tully.

Tully is a sugar processing town which has a phenomenal amount of rain. So much so, that they erected a 7.9 metre tall golden gumboot to represent the yearly rainfall they had in the big flood of 1950. You can climb up inside the golden gumboot to the top and take in the views of the town, the sugar mill, the sugar cane trains and gaudy Subway advertising hoardings. The town is a huge juxtaposition from the beachside try hard towns, and the first thing you see on the way in is a bakery. This is our kind of town.

We had a stroll around town, visited the op shop, I enjoy a pie and Linda didn’t enjoy a coffee. The girl making it apologised for making an ugly one as it didn’t have latte art, but it really needed a full apology and a remake. The pie was cheese and bacon, just a bit of sauce. It had great flaky pastry which was solid enough to hold the contents but light enough to complement the meat. Cheese and bacon in right proportions, and the heat of the pie was not too hot to burn the roof of your mouth, but not so cool that you scoffed it in three bites. The meat chunks were at a good proportion to the gravy, not too many big chunky bits pretending that it is gourmet but enough to know that there is a beef like substance contained within the pastry parcel.

We had been tipped off earlier about a swimming hole called Alligators Nest. With all the Croc talk, it is a little silly that the one place around here you can swim in refers to killer reptiles that don’t exist in Australia. Crystal clear mountain water that was so close to ice that I was wishing that I had a 6 pack of beer in the water next to where I stood. Linda went for a swim, and I just went for a wade. Yes, it was cold and yes, I am a bit soft. I did go above the knees though. Most of the time it was just us there, what an amazing spot to be at.

We capped the day with a long walk on the beach to make sure our apple watches were happy with us closing out our rings. We are not quite wading in the water, and we did give a “log-o-dile” a wide berth, just in case.

Sunday was wet. Like real wet. Not a shower or a mist, but real rain. Those tropical downpours that dump an ocean at you over a period of 15 minutes and then the sun comes out, only to have it send it down half an hour later. Deciding it is a planning day, we head to the supermarket to stock-up for our next few stops that are a bit more remote. Turns out Mission Beach doesn’t have a supermarket on a Sunday either, but we did find an open bottle shop for the real necessities. We attempt to fit in a walk between rain dumps to get some steps up. We didn’t make it back dry. For the last 20 minutes we are soaked to the bone with a deluge of water that reminded me that Poseidon wasn’t happy with us on our last couple of trips, and he probably hasn’t changed his mind.

We head off in the morning, via the Woollies along with every other camper on the Cassowary Coast who didn’t count on the Sunday closure. Leaving the park, we finally see our first Cassowary. It walked right in front of the car and I had to stop to let it past. I didn’t realise the Cassowary spotting was a thing up north, and they can be elusive – so nice to get one on the camera at last.

Big 4 Tasman Holiday Parks South Mission Beach – Google review.

These folks are lifesavers. Not the kind with little bathers and the funny hats, or the lollies, but people who came to our rescue at the end of the day. Our late emergency call was graciously accepted and we were efficiently placed onto a site that was quite adequate for our needs. The power powered, the water watered and the site was level. Cassowary warnings did feel over the top, as we disappointingly hadn’t seen any until I almost drove over one on the road on the way out. A more than adequate 4 stars.