Judy & Brian Tour Oz: South Mission Beach Qld. July 26, 2015

South Mission Beach Qld. July 26, 2015

If half the state of Queensland can have a holiday because the Tully Show is on, I can have a day off from Blog-writing!

Over the last two days we travelled around a bit. We went up to the Murdering Point Winery just north of Mission Beach, at a place called Silkwood, although you'd be hard pressed to spot the actual township. The wine was 'interesting', but we bought some fortified brew because we thought they needed our help!

Just down the road from Silkwood, on the coast is a town called Kurrimine, which doesn't feature in any of the tourist brochures but is quite pleasant and judging by the number of boats in the water and around the van park, it has some good fishing grounds.

We then found ourselves back out on the Bruce, at a town called El Arish, which is in the brochures. It's claim to brochuredom is that it is a reasonably intact example of the soldier settlement, a scheme introduced after WWI whereby returned soldiers could go into a ballot to be allocated a 600 acre farm and some expenses to help get them started as farmers. The town itself grew up not long after to service the farmers. All we could see that might have been original was the hotel and railway station. Speaking of hotels, we had lunch at this one, and pretty good tucker it was too.

Judy making a break for the hotel. El Arish Qld

Railway Station. El Arish Qld

On our way back into the 'beaches', we were slagging off all the 'Beware of cassowary' and 'Cassowary cross here' saying that it was a joke and the you never see them. Wrong. Right then we came across an adult male (they do the baby minding) and two chicks. I braved the traffic roaring past and the Cassowary who was starting to get a bit agitated, to get this snap:

Cassowary. South Mission Beach Qld

Today was 'monster' market day and we toddled along because it's what you do on a Sunday morning in these places. The usual range of sun-dresses and hand-made necklaces competed for space with less than fresh looking vegetables and dog-eared books. We adjourned to Mission Beach for a coffee reviver.

'Monster' Market. Wongaling Beach Qld

Being the lazy sods we are, we ate lunch at the cafe next door to the van park before going down to the end of the road, where there is a boat ramp and a rather nice looking boardwalk going around the headland. It said 1.3 km to Luggers Bay and so we thought we'd have a go. They forgot to mention the stairs up and down, but it was generally pleasant, passing a pebble beach called Lovers Beach. At the end we couldn't bring ourselves to climb down the steep looking stairs, more ladder-like than staircase, to the actual beach of the Luggers bay.