By the time I got my act together this morning (each day its later) and reaslised it was going to be a pearler of a day the hire boat man had sold out of boats

So plan B swung into action and we organised to go out to for the day to the 3 closest Islands to Mission Beach with Fozzie and his water taxi and 20 of our closest grey nomad friends (he says the backpackers won't go as its too expensive. Its only $50 !!!)

Whilst waiting for Fozzie to bring his boat into the beach we watched 8 British backpackers tandem skydive onto the beach (they can afford that at $300 plus). Unfortunatly I don't make the cut weight wise by a few kg's otherwise I would be sorely tempted to do it myself. Susie thought about it for a while and decided not to have a go either

The Dunk Island water taxi used to ply its trade 8 times per day return between Mission Beach and the island when there were 400 guests and over 100 staff working there. Then came cyclone Yasi and it literaly covered the resort in sand. You can see where they have dug the sand out and put it back on the beach in great mounds. Now as the resort is closed unlikely to ever re open the taxi only goes twice a day for campers and bushwalkers. Obviously Fozzie had to find another way to make a quid so he offers this trip 3 days per week. He gives the impression he would rather be doing a 10 year stretch in Pentridge then dealing with toursits. We are a neccesary evil. However the trip was very scenic and we spend 1.5 hours sunning and swimming on his mates private beach on Bedarra Island which was beautiful

Bedarra resort has only just reopened in the last few weeks after a 2 year rebuild and is not quite as exclusive and expensive as it once was when it hosted all manner of royalty and rock stars. It has only opened 9 rooms and they are trialing how is is going to go before opening the rest

We have had a great time at Mission Beach. It has been our favorite beach stop so far. We have a big drive tomorrow, about 500km south to Bowen. An early start !!!