Cairns to Mission Beach

Having touched down in Cairns Airport we immediately hit problems as we tried to smuggle elephant dung into Australia. We didn't do this intentionally as it turned out the picture frames we were given along with our souvenir photos after riding the elephants in Chang Mai were in fact made from it. We can’t have been the first to try and enter Australia unaware of what we were carrying as the customs officer could tell from a scan of our bags not only that we had been to Thailand but that we had been elephant riding.

Other than this, the airport was a breeze and finding transport to our pre-booked hostel was simple, although we were slightly longer at the bus counter than we intended as the lady enjoyed having a good laugh about our dung problems. We were hit by the culture shock before even boarding our bus as there was suddenly no language barrier, everything seemed easier and we felt just like holiday makers rather than backpackers who had just travelled for months through Asia. On top of this we were finding it rather chilly which I hadn’t experienced since China.

The bus dropped us of at Gilligan’s in the heart of Cairns in north-east Australia. Our plan over the next six weeks would be to head briefly north into the rainforest before turning south all the way to Melbourne. Despite landing at the start of June we are in the middle of the Aussie’s winter and we have already found it strange being told that we have landed on a cold day despite there being no clouds in the sky.

Gilligan's taking up most of the street

Gilligan’s had been booked months in advance before leaving England as we thought it would make sense to have accommodation in place for our start in Australia. We went simply on the recommendation of our travel agent and it became pretty clear early on that we would be staying in the party centre of Cairns as the hostel is incredibly big, massively stands out among the other buildings on the road and has a nightclub almost as large as the accommodation building. However, we couldn’t check in before 2pm and had arrived around 11am which was gutting as we were knackered and could have really gone for a shower. Instead we decided to head to the nearest cafe to pick up a couple of full English breakfasts and, even more pleasing, a proper Red Bull seeing as Asian versions of the same drink are incredibly sweet and unpleasant.

Linz checking into her second hostel of the trip

Eventually we could check into our 10-bed dorm with ensuite bathroom and collapse on the bed. After a quick chat with an English couple on the bunk bed next to ours we headed off on a walking tour of Cairns. One of the town’s main attractions is its manmade saltwater lagoon next to the sea which has had to be built as it appears no beaches are safe to swim in given Australia’s insane attraction for deadly animals, in this case crocodiles and jellyfish. We continued to walk around the town’s cafes and tourist shops, which all seem to only own music by U2, before reaching the casino. Having been disappointed in Singapore we were pleased to find virtual blackjack here and whiled away half an hour before leaving about even.

Down at Cairns' lagoon

We returned to the hostel to find the English couple, who we now established were called Clare and Andy, had returned from their day out where they had been sold tickets on the following evening’s party bus. We were unsure about the bus as we haven’t been the drinking types since travelling and it seemed quite expensive. However, later on a girl who worked for the party bus came door-to-door and quite easily convinced Linz that the party bus was the thing to do here. Now I found myself in a one against three situation (Linz, the rep and an American roommate who had already bought her ticket) and soon buckled under the pressure and forked out the £20 on a ticket. We ended the night with a trip to a Mexican restaurant and another trip to the casino. This time I came out on top.

That evening was completely uneventful. Oh wait, actually the American girl decided to bring a guy back to the dorm that night and I was awoken at 2am by the sound them going at it on the bed next to me. My headphones went straight on and I managed to get back to sleep which was surprising given that this was going on just inches from my feet and that the nightclub downstairs plays music so loud until around 5am that the floor vibrates.

We had to be up the next morning fairly early to collect our campervan which we wouldn’t drop off until we reached Melbourne. This was something we had been looking forward to for a long time: no more buses, no more need for restaurants and no more Trip Advisor. We found the rental office easily enough and following a quick lesson in how to actually use a campervan we reset the mile counter and headed out. We had somehow overlapped our hostel booking with our campervan one and still had a night at Gilligan’s so had to find somewhere to park, however quickly found out that a 2.7m tall van is rather hard to park. We found this out as we tried to enter a height restricted mutli-story car park and were forced to turn around surrounded by a surprisingly large amount of people. We ended up finding a space on the road directly outside Gilligan’s which was considerably easier.

I’d like to say it was down to jetlag that we returned to the room and slept almost all day but given the time difference has only moved on by two hours that may be a little hard to get away with. Soon enough then we were getting ready for the party bus but unfortunately for various reasons the friends we had made had all disappeared. Clare and Andy had had to change rooms and I assume the American girl was too embarrassed to hang around the following morning as she was gone very early. But no fear, we headed down to the bar and soon ran into our ex-roommates who had somehow managed to amass a group of about ten others. They must have been held back in our room. The theme of the evening was “Screw and Bolt” and, despite these two words actually being the same thing, the idea was guys got given screws on entry and the girls got given nuts. These would then act as ice breakers as none, except just a few, would match up with any other screw or nut and it was a competition to find one that matched yours. Of course, all this resulted in was the guys with the massive screws approaching girls with a whole armoury of cheesy lines.

Aboard the party bus with Clare and Andy

Our group headed on from Gilligan’s to four or five other venues that night and my fears of an expensive ticket price seemed to be ditched rather quickly as it wasn’t long before the bar tab reached £60. That's £60 for each of us. Games were played throughout the night and Linz and I got involved with drunken Simon Says and a 161 person conga line. Other memorable aspects of the night included managing  to annoy a private party for getting too close to their stairs, being told off for standing on the bar to get a view of a dance-off, and the party bus itself which was very entertaining. Despite being hit very hard in the pocket, the party bus was one of my most enjoyable nights of the trip so far and I'm very pleased Linz talked me into it.

Before getting moved off the bar

The following morning we had to be checked out by 10am which one of us found particularly difficult. The prospect of leaving the safety of her bunk bed was not something Linz wanted to consider so within minutes of checking out she was already passed out on the campervan bed. That was not to be all the effort she had to put in though as we had to find a way of getting internet access on the laptop seeing as Australians feel the need to charge outrageous prices for wifi access. Over the course of the morning we walked back and forth from the mall three times as we got rejected trying to buy mobile internet due to not having our passports again, and then had to go back as the internet didn't work having successfully bought it. Eventually however, we got it running and, following a visit from Clare and Andy to fill in everyone’s memory blanks from the night before, we could head out of Cairns. On our drive out we couldn’t help but notice the number of shops which offered a drive through service, most alarmingly being the drive through off-licence.

We were heading north along the Bruce Highway which, although it changes names further south, runs the entire length of the east coast and would be the backbone of our travels. The van is a converted Toyota Hiace with a 2.7 litre manual engine, which can sleep three people fitted with a fridge, sink, microwave, decent amount of storage as well as a table which forms part of the bed at night. There were a few minor issues though: the battery wouldn’t charge, the steering wheel didn't line up with the wheels, every so often it would pull drastically to the left, the main door required huge amounts of force to open and within 20km there was a hole in the roof. The hole in the roof was due to a metal lid being blown off at motorway speeds without us even realising until we looked up in the back of the van.

The van featuring its "kangaroo grill"

Inside during a pretty typical lunch

Our first stop was Port Douglas which was a favourite of mine when I last came to Australia with the family a few years ago. We checked into the Tropic Breeze caravan park and, with the help of the couple who ran the park, managed to reverse the van into an incredibly tight space between another campervan and a tree. This was the first time I really appreciated how much bigger it is compared to my little car at home. It was here that we established the battery (used to run electrics in the living area, not the engine battery) wasn’t charging so disappointingly had to put off our first self-cooked meal and wander into town to find dinner at the Rattler and Hum before swindling an internet cafe out of electricity as we needed to charge the laptop. Before calling it a night we walked down onto Four Mile Beach which was just a hundred metres from the camp and could enjoy a group of beginners head out for some twilight surfing.

Arriving on four Mile beach at sunset

The next day we wanted to enjoy Port Douglas some more but, having rang the hire company, had to head north to the small town of Mossman to find a garage to fix the battery. We left the van in the garage with under 100km completed and walked into Mossman town centre as we needed to buy a sim card to put in Linz’s mobile phone. When we returned we quizzed the friendly lady at the reception how we could fix the hole in the roof before deciding the best plan was to borrow a ladder and duct tape a Universal Studios plastic bag over the hole. Finally I was seeing benefits to Linz buying that T-shirt on our way out of the park.

Four years of design at university and I come up with a plastic bag and some duct tape

We returned to Port Douglas, with Linz taking the wheel for the first time, and checked back into the Tropic Breeze as we still needed to use their power plugs to charge our battery. We were pleased to see it worked then headed back into town to go food shopping and have lunch at Mango Jam as it was a Mogridge family favourite. We hoped to see Four Mile beach during the day but again we had lost time and had to settle for dusk again but at least we could finally knock up own our meal of pasta and a tomato sauce. Not particularly adventurous I know.

The next day we visited the Wildlife Habitat on the outskirts of town where we met our first koala, called Grizzly, and were even able to hold him briefly following an unbelievably detailed and scientific talk from a guide given that the majority of the audience were about 12 years old. We also came across our first cassowary which is a creature I had absolutely no knowledge of before coming to Australia. It’s one of the craziest looking birds I’ve seen given its huge hairball-like body, scrawny emu like legs, blue dangly neck like a turkey and large horn.

Although it looks like he's pushing me away, I think we got on well

The anomaly that is a cassowary

We then headed north, through Mossman, on the Bruce towards the Daintree rainforest and Cape Tribulation where we would spend our next night. The land in this area of the state of Queensland seems to be covered in sugar plantations and the main road was accompanied all the way by the cane railway which has been used to transport sugar for many years. We eventually left the plantations and ventured into the rainforest however we first had to cross the Daintree river by the use of the cable ferry. Rather than build a bridge, this ferry shuttle cars backwards and forth all day by means of pulling itself along a chain.

Waiting for the ferry to come back for us

As we entered the Daintree rainforest we entered cassowary country as it seemed every few kilometres we would see signs to be aware of the crossing flightless birds. We saw so many signs and warning of the big birds that I am amazed that neither of us had ever heard of them before. Unfortunately we didn't see one, although they are said to be very dangerous so maybe it was a good thing. We continued up some incredibly twisty roads cutting through the rainforest before reaching Cape Tribulation. The Cape was named by Captain Cook, the first European to discover Australia, when his boat ran aground on the coral reef just off the shore. 

We checked into PK’s Jungle Lodge which is set among the dense forest of the area but was just a short walk from the beach. The reason we came here was to explore the rainforest so we found ourselves one of the areas walking tracks, called the Dibuji walk, and set off. Linz had had bad experiences in our last rainforest but somehow she felt Australia would have neater and more controlled ones than the Thais. The walk lasted about an hour’s and although we only saw a small fowl, rather the cassowaries we really wanted to see, we were pleased with the walk and we had ended up on the beach, once again at dusk. Having strolled along the beach for a while we headed back to the van for a homemade fajita dinner.

The next day started with a trip to the Daintree discovery centre where we could walk among the trees and up a five story canopy tower to take in the different layers of the rainforest. Once again we were bombarded with information regarding the dangers of cassowaries and were repeatedly told that if we come across one to not stop the vehicle and drive on. We also took in some documentaries about the formation of Australia, so that we felt like we got more value for money, which was terrible due to shockingly bad graphics which made the prehistoric world look like Wallace and Gromit. That was it for our day as we spent the remainder back at PK’s planning our trip back south.

Linz demonstrating what a cassowary looks like for you

However, before leaving the rainforest region we had an ocean kayaking trip booked the next day, and were picked up by our guide called Pete the next morning. The trip was quite expensive but no one else had signed up for it so we managed to get ourselves a private session. We drove to the other side of the Cape before kayaking back round the Cape itself. Highlights included being shown how to surf a kayak back into land on the waves and even, albeit very briefly, seeing a green turtle poke it’s head out the sea just metres from us. Before kayaking back round the Cape, Pete took us to his favourite spot in the area which was a dense mangrove field where we finally got evidence of cassowaries in the form of tracks leading through the roots. We then caught some prawns by hand and had some banana bread for lunch. Just prior to being returned to PK’s, Pete appeared holding an enormous praying mantis which got very different reactions out of us. Linz retreated in her seat pretty quickly where as I ended up holding it for a while.

Kayaking round the cape

Following our morning’s kayaking we started our journey south which would continue for the length of Australia’s eastern coast. Just beyond the cable ferry however we stopped to board a boat for an hour’s crocodile watching which in reality was a hour on a boat seeing nothing more than a couple of tiny crocodiles and a few birds, while listening to the guide give excuse after excuse for the poor sightings while bad mouthing Bear Grills. That didn't go down well with me but I decided to stay quiet as the man was clearly a big Steve Irwin fan and I wasn’t going to beat him in debate.

Our drive out of the Daintree was not issue free as we had our first run in with the Australian Police. We had only covered a few hundred kilometres in the van and I was already busted going 69km/h in a 60km/h zone so had to bring out some high quality sweet talk. In reality a combination of being foreign and my genuine look of surprise that the speed limit was only 60km/h seemed to get be through.

On our drive south we stopped again in Mossman but this time to see it’s gorge and complete a 2.7km walk around the forest and river area. Once again we saw no wildlife but very much enjoyed how Queensland encourages walking by setting out paths through these otherwise untamed areas. We returned to the van to continue south but then all of a sudden in the distance there it was: a cassowary! Immediately all warnings we had heard were disregarded and we jumped in the van to give chase, but we were too slow as it had disappeared into the wilderness again. We were gutted but had to move on as we had plans that evening.

In Mossman Gorge

While in Port Douglas we had missed out on something I had first done many years ago while on holiday with the family and I was determined to do again: cane toad racing. So we returned to Port Douglas and soon found the Iron Bar where the racing took place. We enjoyed a meal before the main event started of racing the toads. Cane toads are not native to Australia but were in fact brought over in a batch of 100 by the English during the colonial era in hopes that they would eat the cane beetle that was destroying all the sugar in the area. However, following a horrific miscalculation it was discovered that although a cane toad would love to eat the beetles, the beetles lived at the top of the plants and the toad could not reach them. So rather than reduce the beetle population the toads just decided to mate with themselves and suddenly the country was overrun with the beetles, but more significantly, 600 million toads. So now the Iron Bar has opted to race them against each other. Having watched both the evening races, both won by Fat Bastard, we left needing to find somewhere to stay for the night.

Finding a spot to park up and sleep becomes very difficult after 6pm as all campsites close and you have to find a rare spot where it’s legal to camp or, more likely, where you can get away with it. Having moved to a few spots, including the Wildlife Habitat’s car park, we settled on a parking space in the centre of town hoping to go unnoticed among the other cars left there overnight. Somehow we got away with it considering we had actually parked just a down from the police station.

We left Port Douglas for the final time having highly enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere of the small town and journey south towards Mission Beach. On the way we saw evidence of a constant Australian threat as we passed many signs with coloured meters indicating the risk level of bush fires ranging from Low to Catastrophic. I'm no expert on bush fires but if the meter is reading Catastrophic I’d expect to see the sign on fire.

We arrived in Mission Beach to find considerably less than we expected given that it was one of a few places our travel agent had really hyped up. There was little more than one road parallel to the beach with barely any shops, restaurants or even many accommodation options. During our one day and night at Mission Beach we did nothing else other than go for a brief walk on the beach in rather unfortunate weather, so there was little to report.

However, we did check into the Mission Beach Hideaway Holiday Village to find a cassowary walking across our site. Incredibly having driven for hundreds of kilometres through cassowary country we finally got a proper look of one in our campsite, and it even had a baby with it. Once again warnings were rejected as everyone at the site seemed to be following in hot pursuit of the dangerous bird with cameras in hand. Of course we joined in.

Exploring the storm battered beach

Before leaving we heard that Mission Beach was actually still recovering from a cyclone that hit a few months earlier, but even so there was very little here so we happily moved on. Our next stop would be Townsville, the capital of northern Queensland.