Mission Beach - home of the cassowary

before i even get into this - i am seriously considering being a cassowary for halloween. it could be an easy costume if i can get a red tie and some face paint. it would also be hilarious.

so mad about taking the wrong ferry, ate my pancakes (4!), felt a little sorted out but still just kinda grumpy. while traveling on the greyhound, we stopped at a roadside cafe. the ladies bathroom said 'no mangoes' the men room said 'mangoes'. i was thouroughly confused - thinking mangoes are more breast sized than ball-sized. i finally had to ask the lady in the cafe. she gave me a funny looked and told me i was thinking too had. man-goes and no man goes. ohhhhhhhhhh. that made me smile and put me in a better mood.

in mission beach i stayed with greg and minke (minka) and their kids mats(3), jasper (yasper 6?), and jocien (yocien 8) and two german couch surfers micheal and mark. first of all mission beach is small town - i could live there - and gorgeous beaches and rainforest. minke picked me up from the bus and we joined everyone else on the beach for a little fire and roasting marshmallows. mats immediately became my best friend. how can you be grumpy after that? mats and i had to find a stick with two ends so that he could roast two marshmallows at once and in the dark we found one.

they help rescue wallabies so they had two that needed to be given bottles. one is furry and pretty much ready to be released and the other doesnt have hair yet. apparently wallabies are really easy to rescue and you can bottle feed them for a while, then take them someplace with an open backyard, they hand around for a while, and then go off on their own back into the wild no problem. that is pretty amazing.

minke also told use there was a frog in the toilet (white lipped - endemic only to northern queensland). i asked her what you should do - you just go on top of it and don't flush. i think i would be a touch paranoid that it would try to jump up to my butt. freaky. luckily it jumped out of the toilet by the time i had to go.

the next morning i looked into snorkeling and couldn't go that day, so signed up for the next day. i had been told that townsville and mission beach were the best two places to access the great barrier reef bc there are wayyyy less boats going from there than the massive amount of boats going from cairns.

but since i couldnt go that day i explored mission beach. minke had dropped me at wongaling beach for the dive shop, so i made my way to the bus stop to head back towards mission beach. the bus drove by and didnt even stop. so i started walking.

cassowaries are keystone species necessary for the propagation of tropical fruits. they eat something like 160 different fruits (along with anything else they can find) and something like 1/4 to 1/3 have to pass through a cassowary's digestive system to even sprout. the two most common places to find them are in mission beach and cape trib. they are endangered and unfortunately often hit by cars. there is a GIANT cassowary in wongaling at the bus stop and everyone here thinks they are beautiful creatures. there are THREE different types of warning signs in mission beach.

i walked first to the tropical fruit winery where the basis for the wine is bananas and there are actually no grapes used at all. the wine was delicious. i wanted to send mom and dad a bottle but they dont ship to the us adn there is no way i cam carrying two bottles of wine for two months. i did buy a bottle anyway to share with greg, minke, micheal, and mark. i continued down the road, just walking through the town, nothing exciting, visited the environmental center where i got free posters bc i was a teacher, and did a rainforest/beach walk. it was pretty hot by the time i got home (4:30). i think i walked more than 12k that day, but i really dont know.

all of us piled in the car (5 adults/3 kids) and headed to the beach for some pre-dinner fun. what a great tradition. mats had to sit next to me so i crawled into the tiny/no leg room back seat. hilarious. there were many games of chase-y, red light green light, races, and more on the beach. greg and minke pretty much watch as their couchsurfers entertain their children. :) but we willingly entertain. it is quite funny.

so next day great barrier reef!