This was a little bit of a disappointment. It definitely is a beautiful area and I enjoyed aspects of it but things didn’t quite go as I’d hoped and so it just didn’t feel so right. I stayed at Scotty’s Mission Beach House which is theoretically a cool place. But I actually felt out of my element. It was a backpacker’s place which means basically that the clientele are all in their twenties and they’re party-ers and cool dudes and in this case extreme adventurists who were going white-water rafting and skydiving. One of them tried to convince me to go sky-diving. I did give it a fleeting moment’s thought and did look at a video of one and soon decided that like scuba-diving this would not be one of my things. I think I was just not in the right frame of mind for Scotty’s. I did have a room to myself and my own bathroom, which I’ve decided is a must for me. I stayed at the youth hostel in Airlie Beach with a shared bathroom and now that I’m old enough to have to get up to go wee in the middle of the night, it was inconvenient stumbling down the hallway having to remember to take me key with me in my sleepy stupour. Scotty’s was a party place for young sprigs and I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind.
Kayaking didn’t work out. On the Sunday the weather was still to windy so conditions were not good for kayaking. They were going to go out on Monday and I would have stayed for that but then they cancelled it because not enough people had signed up. I was very disappointed. I tried to get on a different tour for Monday but then that meant I would have to stick it out another night and have to endure the P-party. People were coming dressed up as things that start with the letter P. Fortunately I was able to decide just to get on the next bus to Cairns and move on out. That having been said, the beach was beautiful. On Sunday I spent the morning walking a far way down the beach and back. It was beautifully solitary, except for watching the sky-divers come in. And in the afternoon I did the rainforest walk. A 6km walk through the rainforest there. Beautiful.
The circular fan palms were my favourite. I didn’t see any cassowaries, the endangered bird of the rainforest. It’s a bit like and ostrich/emu with a blue head and funky horn hat on its head. I saw quite a bit of cassowary poo though, some of it fresh looking so they definitely are in that area. Apparently they’re quite important to the existence of the rainforest as the seeds from the fruits that they eat are spread throughout the area for replanting through their dung. On the way back along the road to Scotty’s I picked up rubbish that was lying around at the side of the road. The Australians are very good about keeping their beautiful spaces clean but there was some here and so I felt like I’d done a good deed for the world by picking it up. I took the 8 hour bus from Airlie Beach to Mission Beach. It was a long and beautiful drive. The 2 hour ride from Mission Beach to Cairns was also beautiful. It was a rainy day. I haven’t had many rainy days at all. But since we are in the rainforest it seemed only fitting that it should rain. Everything looked different in the rain, green and lush and wet. There was a sensual-ness about it somehow, if that makes sense. There were endless, endless, endless fields of sugar cane. The stereotypical Queenslander houses on stilts with their enclosed porches scattered throughout the endless fields of sugar cane and the mountains in the background. I was feeling melancholy and somehow the scenery and the weather suited my mood very well. I splurged for a lovely hotel in Cairns. Thanks to Kirstie at Scotty’s who helped me find it. She knew of and internet site where you can find amazing deals on hotel rooms and so I got a very nice room that I feel quite good in. I’m feeling hints of getting a cold and so it’s nice to feel a little pampered in this place.
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