We were
happy to be heading off towards Mission Beach, knowing we were going to meet up
with our good friends Belinda, Marty, Charlotte and Meg once more. It had been
a long time since Kununurra, though Facebook makes it ridiculously easy to keep
in touch. They had found a fantastic piece of paradise – a wonderfully cheap
caravan park right ON the beach. At $140 for the week (no charge for children)
it was an easy decision to spend the whole 7 nights there. Happily, Marty and
Bel had already made friends with a great bunch of people, so we slotted into a
lovely relaxed, low-key lifestyle of gentle digs at the neighbours, walks
through the rainforest, swims in the beach, meals all together and late nights
up drinking with mates.
Bertha’s site was opposite the beach and we had a view
of the constantly revolving whizz-bangers coming and going. Backpackers in
small white vans or the old spray-painted Wicked campers are call whizz-bangers
by other travellers. It’s the sound their door makes when
they open and close it. 54 times a night. Whiiiiiiz BANG every time they need a
new drink. Or a knife. Or anything else they need to grab from their
belongings. Or they need to get up at night and go to the loo. Whiiiiiiiiz
BANG! Thankfully Bertha is wonderfully insulated and we don’t notice after we go inside. Which was just as
well as we must have had 9 or 10 different whizz-bangers opposite us over the
week!
Angus and I had an early morning walk in search of the elusive cassowary - a huge bird which is critically endangered. With about 2000 left in the wild, we weren't that likely to see one, thought we were in the most cassowary-ish part of FNQ. It is called the Cassowary Coast, afterall. There were numerous signs warning of cassowaries crossing, and even recent sightings. Angus and I headed off for a walk through the rainforest early one morning in the hope of spotting one. We saw any number of native animals - wallabies, lace monitor lizards, orange-footed scrub fowl and about a million enormous golden orb spiders, but sadly no cassowaries.
Angus and I had an early morning walk in search of the elusive cassowary - a huge bird which is critically endangered. With about 2000 left in the wild, we weren't that likely to see one, thought we were in the most cassowary-ish part of FNQ. It is called the Cassowary Coast, afterall. There were numerous signs warning of cassowaries crossing, and even recent sightings. Angus and I headed off for a walk through the rainforest early one morning in the hope of spotting one. We saw any number of native animals - wallabies, lace monitor lizards, orange-footed scrub fowl and about a million enormous golden orb spiders, but sadly no cassowaries.
Fortunately, on our way OUT of Mission Beach, we were lucky enough to have one of the 2000 cassowaries run across the road in front of us! They really DO look like some remnant of the dinosaur age...
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