En route to Mission Beach, we stopped for lunch at a terrific spot - the Tyto Wetlands in Ingham. What an amazing surprise! This place was completely free and was such a great stop-over point on the Bruce Highway, just when the kids were getting wriggly. The wetlands are named after the endangered Eastern Grass Owl called the Tyto owl, which makes its nest on the ground and inhabits the Wetlands. There's a great interactive information centre where you can learn all about these unusual birds and the other creatures in this unique habitat. We also had fun exploring the boardwalks and feeding the tons of turtles with special fish pellets from the centre. A bonus is a beautiful cafe with great coffee, perfect to fuel up on before setting off on the next leg of our trip.
Luke and I had been excited about hitting Mission Beach since we started planning our trip. A truly beautiful and peaceful little town on the ocean, with palm tree lined streets and calm water beachfront, this little community is surrounded by world heritage rainforest on one side and world heritage reef on the other - it truly is where the forest meets the sea and the townspeople of Mission Beach are passionate about conservation and living in harmony with their gorgeous surrounds. The area is also famous for having the highest density of the endangered Cassowary in Australia. With all the road signs warning of these beautiful birds being out and about, we were hoping to spot one and were all pretty excited to come across a mum and a baby as they casually crossed the busy road as we drove into town!
There was one big difference to our visit to Mission Beach this time around... it began to rain as we drove into town and it continued to rain and rain and rain and RAIN!!! Locals said it was the wet season coming late, but it was a bit of a shock to the system for us, having now had no more than an hour or so of lousy drizzle of wet stuff since we embarked on this trip, some seven weeks ago!
And anyone with a caravan or tent or campertrailer can attest... it's not fun for anyone setting up camp in the rain... Except for the kids that is, and then they ended up in the puddles, then in the pool and flying down the playground slippery slide at tremendous speed, and they couldn't get over how amazingly fun this rain-stuff can be!
But the novelty wore off a tad when the rain continued and continued and got heavier and heavier. Later we found out we were camping in the biggest downpour that the area had seen in yonks and that nearby Cairns had just had more rain in a day than they had recorded since the 1930's!
The next day we counted our blessings that only the corners of our mattresses were a tad soggy and as soon as there was a break in the weather, we hit the beach to assess the damage of the delude. The kids played for ages with the washed up drift wood and in the puddles and the rain proved just another chance to see Australia in all of its changing beauty and glory.
More rain and a visit to nearby Tully was our attempt to avoid it. But if anyone knows anything about this quaint little sugar cane town, they know that its not just named after my little brother (the kids were super excited to visit their Uncle's 'town'!) but also that it is famous for being the wettest town in Australia, with an annual rainfall exceeding 4,000 millimetres. So in fact, instead of attempting to escape the rain on the coast, we drove into more rain at Tully! Raincoats on and the kids climbed the Golden Gumboot and we took a little drive around the town and were amazed to see the river was roaring - if we only had a couple of babysitters in tow, we may have found the nerve to join the other thrill seekers at Tully Gorge for some whitewater rafting fun! Next time...
