Mission Beach.

The following day in Mission Beach, I thought the forecast was supposed to rain again, otherwise I would have gone to Dunk Island for the day, but it was blue skies before I even realised it. Since I knew I was leaving at 17.20 that night, I decided to take the shuttle into town to check out the town of Mission Beach as I was staying in the village of Wongoling along Mission Beach. I had wanted to do the rainforest walk, but the shuttle left 15 mins earlier than I expected and I ran out to catch it without sneakers and without water, unprepared. So I stayed in the town, checked out the stores and cafes and decided about ten minutes later (there really wasn't much going on in the town of Mission Beach at all)  that I would wander down the beach to get back, which they said would take 30-40 mins.  It was nice to have the beach to myself, and even better that the sun was hot and the blue sky was almost cloudless.

I had decided that once I got back to the beach entry towards the hostel, I would lie in the sun for the rest of the afternoon before having to get on the bus.

I felt as though, especially after the rainy day, my tan was fading. I wanted to soak up the sun again.

It's high season for the deadly stinging jelly fish in the ocean and it's really dangerous to go swimming. I passed the protected area where you could actually swim within a net and not get stung - kinda of bizarre. It loses the fun of swimming in the ocean when you are only allowed to be in an enclosed area. 

Apparently the little baby jelly fish can still get through the holes in the net.  

As I was walking along the beach I saw a large white lump being washed over by the waves. I couldn't believe it when it was a dead giant sea turtle - I thought it must've been some beachy art sculpture or something, but no, it was real. 

 so old. so sad. so alone.

Put my melted Rainbow's in for perspective. 

I couldn't stop staring at it, and felt bad when I left it there, all alone. 

 I walked on and couldn't believe it when I saw another dead giant sea turtle washed up on shore - so sad really. They must've been really old and I thought to myself they must have died of heartbreak, one after the other just down the beach from each other. 

 I continued on down the beach until I got to a creek that I recognised immediately when I remembered that when the reception gave me a map the day before, she said don't cross it at high tide and be careful of the alligators/crocodiles - don't try to go around it.

It wasn't high tide, but it wasn't exactly walkable. I waited for a bit, unsure what to do. I sat on the beach for a bit; it was empty enough to pretend I had a bathing suit on and plus I wanted the sun bathing time anyways, so might as well, I thought. I was less worried about someone seeing me in my bra than some sort of reptile coming out from the vegetation behind me. I was constantly looking behind me to see what could be possibly lurking and snapping off my head suddenly as I lay there. I thought about my dingo lessons and had no comfort in thinking that crossing my arms across my chest would protect me from getting eaten. More anxious about the animals than the sunburn, I wandered back to the edge of the creek to see how much of the tide had gone out and the water still looked way too deep with quite a strong current so I just decided to walk back towards town. I wasn't going to wait till 14.45 for the bus, but found a "short cut" through the houses. However, I walked and walked. It must've been near 30 degrees and by the time I finally reached the hostel, walking on the tarmac burning heat from the ground up, I was completely burnt. I did want to get colour from lying on the beach, but not exactly from walking for 3 hours and only having a juice that morning. A cold shower and a treat to a colder cider was exactly what I needed for my trip towards the north. And I later found that I had the biggest blister on the ball of my foot, bigger than my big toe, that would cause me to hobble around like a gimp for the next two or three days.

lurk.lurk.lurk.

Mission Beach was a pleasant stop off for me along the way to figure out my plans and have some completely quiet alone time. It is surrounded by and filled with a lot of natural beauty that would be fun to further explore, along with some deadly and dead wild life, but that's about it - unless you want to say you sky-dived Mission Beach. And if that's the case, make sure you have flexible plans to stay a couple days, just in case the weather is bad and you can't jump out of a plane that day - because that did happen. 

there were lots of these on the beach....

Mission Beach: Rescued Animal Sanctuary and a Wildlife Tour.

showing off. 

'roo

In Mission Beach the hostel was quiet, but they had activities planned for each day. The first one I signed up for was a $5 donation to go see a Wallaby rescue house. The girl at reception sold it to me when she said we had the chance to hold the baby wallabies. The woman who rescued them was a bit nuts, but really passionate about her animals and saving them. She had the cutest wallabies and a kangaroo that each had their own pillow case pouches, which they would just jump and crawl right into them ever so naturally.
She would fling them about in the pouches, swinging and swirling, as though it were the same motions as the mother hopping about. There was one wallaby that was only 2 months old and when she rescued it, it was like 2 inches big and couldn't even open its eyes yet. SO tiny.

 The others would hop about, very curious and friendly, coming put to smell us and lick us. Pooped and peed where ever they wanted. They were very clean animals, always licking themselves but not their butts like cats do, she said.




If a dingo is chasing them near the water, they jump into the water, get up onto their tails, lean over the dingo until the bubbles stop and bounce off, victorious.


 she liked my smell and my bag.

We were allowed to hold them in the pouch, but had to hold them close and hug them securely to make them feel safe.

view from my lap.

showing off the little baby.

She also had a python which luckily growled at her when she tried to take it out of the cage,
 
so instead brought out a blue tongued lizard, was really cool actually and the tongue was striking blue!

she also had st andrew spiders on her wall which were black and yellow like bumble bees and so venomous looking but not dangerous at all, just eating all the mozzies.


She feeds them liquid formula from a tin that costs $30 so she appreciated our donations. Call 1300-animal if you ever see an animal in danger.




I'm so maternal. I obviously have no idea how to feed the wallaby properly and looks as though I am choking it.

scratch.scratch.scratch.

the little one snug as a bug in a woolie cap to keep warm. he just wanted to play with the others.

best friends.

see how tiny he is compared to her hand! 

It was pouring rain and humid, very tropical paradise-like, absolutely pissing rain, but there was another free tour to go to a conversation site and see cassowaries and wallabies. We only saw wallabies. A lot of them, actually, which the farmers wanted to shoot so they could develop the land but the rescue woman was creating a petition against it. They were everywhere in Mission Beach really, and apparently a pest eating the grass, but oh so cute…

They would stare at us until we got too close and they would hop frantically away. One of them ran right under the barbed wire fence, but immediately stopped on the other side of it as though he knew the fence was a protective barrier we wouldn't cross. 

Spotted along 

Mission Beach. (and life decisions)

After my desired plane ride over the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef, it was literally onwards and upwards - this time, unfortunately past Magnetic Island - but onto Mission Beach. Mission Beach is one of those places you hear about now and again as a popular stop along the coast. Mainly, it is famous for tourists to skydive: jump out of an airplane over the GBR and land directly onto Mission Beach. Although it would have been a stunning experience, I have already skydived and had to save my money for other travels expenses. I was heading to Mission Beach because I wanted an opportunity to WWOOF again and I had found a hydroponic farm along Mission Beach that sounded right up my alley in terms of what I wanted to learn about growing vegetables and herbs - a learning experience in the tropical rain forest for my future Irish farm, no doubt. Makes sense. On the 8 hour bus ride up to Mission Beach from Airlie Beach, northern Queensland is absolutely breath-taking - and this is just the views from the side of the road from a bus window. We were surrounded by cascading mountains, tall grasses, wild palm trees and eucalyptus trees, lush vegetation, fertile fields of purposely planted produce I couldn't even identify but imagined mangos, avocados, bananas and aloe vera, and the sense of the intoxicating aquamarine ocean was just beyond reach. Going further north and into the rampant rain forest, I really felt as though I was finally far away - far away from civilisation and far away from home. Even when in the middle of Western Australia, I never actually felt so in the middle of nowhere. I felt as though, maybe I had come too far, that it was time to go back. I knew I had to be back all the way south in Sydney in a month for Christmas and I wasn't quite sure how I would get there.
Upon arriving in Wongoling Beach, one of the villages along Mission Beach where my hostel was, there was nothing in the near vicinity besides a little shopping arcade with a closed news agent, an over priced Thai restaurant (over priced for the mere backpacker, but boy did it look scrumptious) and a Woolies.
So, I walked to the beach hoping to get a glimpse at the pastel sunset. As I was about to set out upon my stroll, a guy came running over to me yelling at me to watch out. He said I had to stand back or else the descending sky divers might knock me out, breaking bones or even killing me. So, I stayed back and watched the landing show. One actually did come quite close to me as I ran back into the prickly vegetation on the edge of the sand, but I smiled as they all screamed with joy at their survival. The beach was pretty empty, and it felt weird to feel alone for once. Alone and far away. Even traveling by myself for the last couple weeks, I hadn't actually felt very alone. Being alone is nice, even necessary sometimes, as long as you don't take it for loneliness. Everyone needs to have their own space, but a quote I learned along the way, "happiness is only true when shared" popped into my head. As much as I have grown comfortable with myself since traveling solo and relished in my own time, it would be nice to share these experiences with someone (oh, hello Blog). But, I had grown a bit tired of traveling; I had no desire to talk to any new people in the hostel and needed to figure out my own life before I could invite anyone new into it.

 To be honest, as I sat there on the sand and staring off into the vast ocean, thinking about my travels and all the beautiful places along the coast I had seen, with the sunset symbolically closing the day with my own ending introspection, I still thought: Killyhooey is still my favourite beach.

Mission Beach to me, since I wasn't doing the sky dive, was a quiet stop off where I did not do much, but contemplate back and forth (times a hundred million) what to do with my remaining time here in Australia. I was looking forward to some of the nature "things" Mission Bach offered, like a walk in the rain forrest, a day trip to Dunk Island, a Cassowary conservation site (what is that? it's like an emu) and Sunday morning markets.

But the following day it absolutely poured with unbareably high humidity - the kind of heat that you want to sleep completely naked, not even a thin sheet to cover your feet, despite the fact that you are in a hostel with 7 other people in the room. It was the start of the rainy season and I had to decide if I wanted to stay up here for another month, in the rain, and the curly-hair-humidity to do my remaining farm work. If I got my second year visa, it would be really, another year of living abroad. Another year of fabulous weather, meeting new people, and picture-perfect places. It would be nice to have it as an option, a bit of a shame not to take advantage, but I could always come back on a tourist visa.  I've met so many people here who were just on holiday, whereas I always thought Australia was too far away to do that. People actually go on holidays rather than moving to unknown places without a plan!!!  This year of mine, without a plan, here in Australia....I don't even know how to put into words. I do know that looking back, I would have done everything differently, but I regret nothing. It was an experience. It was my Australian Adventure. A year was exactly what I needed and now I want to create a real life. I can honestly say that I have grown up, that I am more comfortable with myself, and have heaps more confidence. I absolutely adored and appreciated the opportunities I had, the experiences while traveling by myself, the friends that I met along the way - some who I hope to keep in contact with and see again in the near future - and yes, can check off these places on my places to see.

So, back to my indecisiveness - which I still have to work on - I made a plan. I weighed all my options, over a couple hours, checking out prices for buses and flights and which combination of travel was the cheapest and most convienent and searched for some inner confidence to comfort me in knowing whichever decision I was going to make was going to be the right one. I was to leave Mission Beach earlier than planned (missed out on getting my 3rd night's refund back) and go up to Cairns to not only check it out, but to fly from there back to Brisbane. I had another WWOOF opportunity down there, who seemed pretty eager to have me run their Community Garden at this swanky mountain top resort, but something about it didn't feel right and Brisbane also was where I had a few friends I could meet up with again. I was flying out of Brisbane in a couple weeks anyways so I thought it would be best to look for a job there to earn some money to pay back for all this traveling. I had a plan, I was going to stick with it, and I was going to feel good about it.