22/9/9 Tuesday Magnetic island to Mission Beach

Guido our driver joined us on the return ferry back over to Townsville to pick up the Oz bus to carry on North. We drove straight to Mission Beach only stopping briefly for lunch in Cardwell where we saw several dugongs swimming in the bay and you could see over to Hitchinbrook island from there which is the largest of the tropical islands. We made another brief stop at the golden gumboot in Tully. Tully is notoriously wet and the gumboot is a huge gold welly erected to celebrate the towns wetness!! All Englands towns should have one!! We were collected from Mission Beaches transit centre by the Scottys beachouse van. Scottys is the place Liz stayed when she came before and it was just the same chilled out place with lovely pool. We wrote the diary and then went on afree wildlife tour. We went on a walk around a rainforest path where there were Cassowarys (Australias most dangerous bird) . We didn't see one but we saw plenty of fresh droppings so they were around. Next we drove over to a river where there was a crocodile but no sign of that either. We saw plenty of Wallabies though. When we got back to the hostel we spent the evening updating the blog which had been neglected for ages then had a pretty late night.

23/9/9 Wed Mission Beach

We were booked to go rafting on the Tully river and so were picked up at 7.30. Liz was really nervous all morning as the rafting in Ecuador had really frightened her and she really wasn't looking forward to it. Phil then decided it would be a good idea to sign us up for us to go on the more extreme trip. The extreme raft trip left early so they could get on the river first and have lots of time to do some extreme things. We got into the rafts and went through the first few rapids and it was really great fun. we spent the morning swimming through some of the rapids, rowing through others, jumping off really high rocks and going downa natural slide which sucked us underwater for about 6 seconds and popped us out several meters downstream. Liz loved it!!! Just befroe lunch Jonny our guide stopped our raft just under a massive waterfall so we all got a natural power shower. We had a BBQ lunch then set off formthe afternoons activities. It was a much gentler afternoon but Jonny found some fun for us. He got all the girls up the front then pulled us into a rapid so we sucked under a torrent of water...really funny, he said Lizzies eyes were like saucers!!! Phil body surfed in a rapid and got thrown downstream with the flow of the water. We ended the day with another big rock jump then off to a park for drinks and fruit. Then we travelled back to the base for beer and to collect the photos which look far more extreme than it felt out there. We returned to Scotties and got chatting to a retired English couple in the room next to ours. They lived in NZ after emigrating to australia 36 years ago. We had a cup of tea and a chat for a while then went off to get some food before bed. Unfortunately Lizzies camera wasn't working and so Phil took it apart hoping it just needed a dry after the wet day we had.