In our first year of caravanning, 2019, we have a lovely time on the beaches between Cairns and Townsville so to relive it, we book a week at South Mission Beach. There is a view out to Dunk Island, the white sand beach stretches for kilometres, the waters are calm and the sun shines every day. Except it doesn’t. It is overcast, warm, and humid and generally less enjoyable than having a sauna. The ocean is still pleasant and the cassowaries still wander through the campground. As they should. After all, this is the Cassowary Coast. It takes a little while to dawn on us that the weather should not be a surprise. We’re only a few kms from Tully, which along with Innisfail, vies for the wettest town in Australia. The clue is in the massive gumboot that proudly adorns the town’s entrance and proclaims its soggy history. We should remember this fun fact from our previous visit.
In the middle of the week we decamp, leaving the caravan in the campground and drive up to Cairns. A fancy air conditioned hotel beckons, with dinner at a gorgeous French restaurant, and for me, turning $50 into $260 playing roulette at the Casino.
Cairns, while it does have some charms, is one of those weird coastal holiday towns with no beach. It does a roaring trade out to the Great Barrier Reef and surrounds, but the town itself feels a bit scuzzy: plenty of razzamatazz but it is all surface and no substance. I surprise myself in rereading my 2019 blog as apparently I fell in love with it then – how fickle I must be. This time overnight is enough. Besides, the temptation to risk my winnings back at the roulette table may be too much. On our return to the beach the weather clear and we enjoy sunny days for biking and swimming.
We glide down the coast stopping at places we haven’t been before. Bowen, population 10,000 , heralds itself as the mango capital of Australia and has a great big mango to prove it. Sadly it isn’t mango season, but there are still strawberries, melons, passionfruit and the ubiquitous bananas. And frozen mango does make an excellent smoothie. There are so many mango trees (that’s one in our caravan park in the pic below) and we see hectares and hectares of new plantings. It must be quite a sight to see a plantation in fruiting season with thousands of those delicious oval golden fruit waiting to be picked. Lovely bike paths and a beautiful coastline make Bowen a place to linger, though we can’t wait til mango season.
South, and closer to Mackay we find a necklace of sandy bays interrupted by rocky headlands, with the southernmost end butting up on Hillsborough National Park. A vertiginous scramble – slight exaggeration, but not much – takes up on a headland walk with magnificent views, though our planned walk back along the beach is thwarted by a rising tide. Several of these bays have Council owned camp grounds with gorgeous views so we earmark them for future travels.
This time we are staying on a small park at Haliday Bay Golf Course, though both Mark Twain and I consider golfing a good walk spoiled. The clubhouse is well worn and drab, but the beach is, again, glorious. This is our first time seeing a stinger net – see photo below, along with me fetchingly modelling a stinger suit. Scott is so tough he doesn’t need one – though it seems they are common in the north. Fortunately it isn’t stinger season but these beasts are potentially lethal, their metre long tendrils impossible to see in the water. Here people swim wearing stinger suits – which also explains why so many people have swimming pools.
The other pest which won’t kill you but may drive you insane is the equally invisible midge. In these warm evenings they loiter, waiting for an opportunity to strike, and are generally pretty successful as you don’t know you’ve been bitten until the middle of the night when the warmth of the bed causes the bites to come alive and itch like crazy. I wander around in a perfume haze that is the winning combination of multiple layers of bug repellant and sun screen.
In Mackay another boat trip beckons. We join an excursion out to Scawfell Island, about 75 minutes off the coast. I win a silent bet with myself when it is only five minutes before Scott is distracting the skipper to talk boats and fishing. We see a couple of humpback whales on the way out. The Queensland and NSW coast is nicknamed the Humpback Highway: depending on which website one consults, about 30,000 humpbacks travel 10,000 kilometres up from Antarctica over Winter, then back south when the waters warm again. A bit like grey nomads in their caravans.
Swimming, snorkelling and paddle boarding the order of the day. I actually manage to briefly stand on the board, but my glory is short lived – as are my hat, sunglasses and dignity when I fall in. While it’s beautiful out around the islands, I wouldn’t break my arm to go snorkelling there again, especially as we are spoiled by the wonders of the Ningaloo Reef on the West Coast.
It’s easy to fall in love with towns along this North Queensland Coast. There is generally good infrastructure including marinas, lots of parks, excellent swimming pools, sports fields, and great bike trails. Our personal requirements also include a yoga studio for me and croquet club for Scott. Mackay has all of this and we really enjoy our stay, thinking it’s a potential long stay location in the future. But then, who knows what the future will bring?