Mission Beach

Down from Millaa Millaa to the coast was fantastic. The weather was perfect, no wind and the scenery beautiful. Rolling green dairy land. The Palmerston highway led us over 800 meters down to the coast and just a few kms later we hit Innisfail, where we stopped at a neat and tidy caravan park with the best equipped camp kitchen ever. Everything a cook would need was there and in multiple. A grassy spot for the tent and mind: don't get too close to the river, there are saltwater crocodiles.

Innisfail is the Art Deco capital of Queensland and it was worth while a visit. The town, in our view more a village (sorry, we're Dutch) indeed had a number of buildings that referred to the Art Deco style of the interbellum period. Shocking though to see that the fronts of some of the historic buildings were distorted by cheap-material verandas and those huge billboards that are so characteristic for this country. I have started to think that all Australians have very bad eye sight. Why else should they need those huge ill-coloured billboards for. Ugly, I'm sorry.

The next day ride south was on the Bruce Highway. We have been warned that this road, that we will have to follow all the way to Brisbane, is supposed to be busy, sometimes narrow and dangerous. Today it was not so bad. A rear wind blew us forward and we reached the road to Mission Beach quite soon. We had to make this detour because we had an appointment with Jeff and Jane, another Warmshowers couple. We found their beautiful house on a hill, overlooking the jungle and the sea and with scores of wild walibi grazing right in front of their veranda.

After a very agreeable evening together we went to bed as, like a Tilburger would say: “a contented man”. (Suggestions for a better translations welcome).