Mission Beach IV

Saturday, our last day at Mission Beach dawned fine, clear and warm. After breakfast we went for our longest walk on the beach. We made it all the way to the creek a couple of kilometres along the beach. Once at the creek we had a great time racing leaves, sticks, and cuttlefish in the creek out to the ocean. Tae collected many, many shells on our long walk, and Stephen & Mike had a great time kicking and throwing balls all the way along the beach.

Upon returning Stephen & Mike spent time swimming in the pool before Tae went to the bakery to get pies for lunch. Stephen & Mike spent more time in the pool and sunbaking – Mike even managed to do the hard Sudoku in the Australian! We all had a rest in the afternoon after a big morning.

After sausages for dinner, Bernie the next door neighbor lit a bonfire on the beach and Stephen, Mike, & Tae enjoyed bbq'd marshmallows. Tonight is the first Bledisloe Cup match and Stephen was allowed to stay up late to watch the Haka.

Mission Beach III

Friday was a beautiful sunny and warm day. After breakfast we went for a very long walk along the beach. Firstly, we checked our sand castle from Thursday and it was still completely intact because the tide didn't come up as high as where we built the sand castle. Tae collected lots of sand dollars while Mike & Stephen kicked the ball, played dinosaurs (including the dinosaur dung game), buried logs in sand, etc... We stopped for coffee and ice cream on the way back at the beachside cafe.

When we got back Tae chatted to Christine who told Tae if we'd walked a little further we would have come to the river...which is populated with crocodiles! Pretty sure we won't be walking that far tomorrow. In summer when they put out the stinger nets crocodiles have been spotted resting on top of the buoys. Christine also told Taemar about cyclone Larry two years ago. The water was two feet deep and she called two of her boys who flew up from Perisher. They carted 40 wheelbarrow loads of coconuts alone out of her yard!

We had lunch at a cafe we hadn't been able to try previously and we really enjoyed the food – Barramundi, chips, salt & pepper squid, salad – beautiful.

In the afternoon we went for a drive back to the rainforest walk. We intended to do the longer 1.3km walk but it was closed for some reason, so we did the shorter walk following Cassowary footprints until we found the eggs. Stephen pretended we were following Velociraptor footprints and he was Nigel Marbury (from Walking with Dinosaurs). We stopped the car a little way along the dirt path back to the main road and we were able to do 100m or so of the longer walk that features a huge number of fan palms. We also went for a drive North to Bingal Bay and arrived at the jetty in time to see the catamaran arrive back from the reef and unload all the people. It's only an hour from Mission Beach to the Reef.

Stephen & Mike played some soccer on the front deck, which they have done every day! Yet again Stephen won, this time the score was 12-5. We were pretty tired in the evening and stayed in for dinner. When we spoke to Bernie next door who spent the day repairing the seat that sits just up from the beach out the front of our house, he told us they were planning a bonfire for Saturday night and we were welcome to join them. Stephen was really excited about this, as were Taemar & Stephen.

Mission Beach - Part II

Today, Thursday looked like it was going to be a fine day, and so it turned out. After breakfast at home in the morning and some relaxation indoors we went for a long walk south along the beach. Mike & Stephen spent time kicking the ball – a bit tricky as we were into the wind. A little way up the beach there is a shack and for the first time since the weekend it was open & Mike was able to buy a coffee and an ice cream for Stephen. We continued walking all the way to the corner where the beach heads a little west and there is a lone palm tree that is away from the shore in the sand (you can see a phot of this if you search for Mission Beach on Google Maps).

When we got back home Stephen & Mike spent time in the pool having a swim. Stephen & Mike took turns pretending they were sharks or crocodiles. After a lunch of sandwiches, followed by some more pool time for Stephen & Taemar, Stephen & Mike headed to the beach for some serious digging & built a magnificent sand castle.

There was time for some more relaxation at home and then we headed out for dinner to the Pizza restaurant – yummo!

New photo's have also been uploaded to the Mission Beach Picasa web album.

Mission Beach Holiday, Part 1

Our holiday started very smoothly; We were all up early well before 6am, so we were just ready in time for our 7:15am taxi to the airport. We left plenty of extra time to make our 9:25am flight because of World Youth Day (week?).

The flight was no problem although there were only adult shows on the Qantas in-flight entertainment, which is pretty crap. I’d brought 2 laptops with me, one had an absolutely flat battery and wouldn’t even start, while the 2^nd had been recently setup with Linux and didn’t have the required video codecs. This meant that despite having a range of DVD’s with us we couldn’t play any. Stephen was happy in any case listening to Mike’s iPod.

The Hertz car rental was smooth, however the baggage carousel was clearly being manned by a single one armed man as it took a long time for any luggage to appear. Taemar was strongly suggesting to Mike that a luggage trolley would have been a great idea as we got to about 200m of the 500m walk to our hire car (although Mike was carrying all the bags except for one!)

The drive to Mission Beach was easy and for once the GPS was absolutely spot on with the location and directions.

Our house by the sea is lovely and could probably be described as rustic. I love the corrugated iron roof & we’ve had plenty of rain to listen to on the roof! The best part is from our deck it’s 20m of grass, then the sand of the beach – lovely. If we’re not listening to the rain on the roof we can listen to the surf a stones throw away.

On our first night wen went to one of the local restaurants for pizza – yum!

On Sunday there was a local market – not interesting as with every market, however time passed. We went for a walk on the beach, heading North, relaxed, had coffee, and lunch in town. Mike really enjoyed the works burger.

On Monday we fell into our routine of breakfast at home followed by the trip into town (about 50 metres) for coffee, the paper and lunch. We went for a long walk on the beach to the south. Mike & Stephen went quite some way as they were kicking a ball and running. On the way back Stephen & Mike were distracted by sand and dug some large holes and joined them together. Mike & Stephen also enjoyed playing soccer on the front deck. In the afternoon we went for a short bushwalk. What was interesting about this were the signs saying “don’t feed the Cassowary’s”. Mike carried a stick just in case because there were warning signs saying that Cassowary’s can get aggressive if fed. It was only when we went to the Crocodile farm on Wednesday that we realized how dangerous Cassowary’s actually are.

On Tuesday we went for a walk on the beach again although this time we headed North. Stephen & Mike dug a quite impressive moat with a feature tunnel. In the middle were towers and we then built a bridge across to the other side.

On Wednesday it was very rainy. We spent the morning lazing around the house and then we went to the crocodile farm. We made it in perfect time for the crocodile feeding which was great. The crocodiles were quite sleepy as it was a bit cool for them, but we got to see quite a few of these impressive creatures. We also got to feed some Kangaroos and hold a small crocodile, however we turned down the opportunity to hold a rather large snake… There were also two Cassowary’s as well and we learnt that they are the most dangerous bird in the world. They have a middle tow that is called a garroting claw and they know how to use it! Also, if they have been fed by humans they will expect humans to keep feeding them, but if they come across a human who doesn’t feed them they attempt to persuade them by kicking them with their garroting claw…not fun!

We had lunch at a café in Innisfail and then on the return trip home our windscreen wipers stopped working. As it was pouring we couldn’t continue and we had to call the RACQ. After a little over an hour of keeping a bored 5 year old entertained the RACQ guy turned up…and the wipers worked perfectly…awesome!

For dinner Taemar cooked a beautiful chicken laksa with the fresh coconut juice we got from the coconuts out the front of our place. Stephen was a little worried going to sleep – he was worried that a salt water crocodile was going to come in and eat him!

Football Registration

Today was Football (Soccer) registration for Stephen. Stephen is now a member of the Curl Curl Under 6 team called the "Mini Monsters". As part of his registration he received new shorts, socks, and a ball. We then went to the shops and picked up a set of boots (they have to have studded boots to be allowed to play) for just $7 - not bad!