On the drive into Mission beach we saw a cassowary at the side of the road (as it turned out the only one we would see apart from the large fibre glass one - despite going on a search in the forest for them) and lots of road signs telling us to watch out for them. Angus saw a tree in a bikini which we took a photo of on the way out again.
Mission beach is lovely with lots of sand and rainforest again although it did suffer a lot of damage in Cyclone Yasi earlier in the year and parts of it have not really recovered. We stayed at the Big4 right on the beach and enjoyed their pool facilities and played around on the beach until the sun went down.
Day two in Mission beach and we hired a tiny boat to take us over to Dunk Island and the smaller islands opposite Mission beach. We fashioned some eye-patches out of our aeroplane eyemasks and set off for uninhabited "pirate island". I have done a short video of pirate Pugh on the trip. The first small island we landed on was tiny but covered in coral that had washed up on the beach after the recent cyclone. There were huge pieces shaped like brains and worms and funnels. It was fascinating. The kids wanted to take some away but we explained that it was not allowed and we set sail again. We looked at the devastation caused on Dunk Island, the twisted trees, the collapsed holiday houses etc and then settled on a large sandy beach for our picnic. We finished the trip on Dunk's main beach where we were the only people. Oliver took this opportunity to run about with no clothes on. He usually does this at least once every holiday. We did not join in.
At dusk we went out to walk through the fan palm trees looking for cassowaries. We did see a musky rat kangaroo instead which was exciting. A good end to our roadtrip. Next stop Cairns.