Day 160 - Mission Beach

After leaving Cairns, I had my first proper big journey in the Deluxe Samantha, and drove her 2 hours south past a shed load of amazing beaches (literally, this place is crawling with palm tree lined, white sand beaches). Past banana fields. Past sugar mills spewing a stupid amount of white smoke into the already screwed atmosphere. Past trains with about 300 carriages crossing roads every 10 minutes. Until we reached Babinda - a pretty anonymous town with some pretty beautiful boulders.



This place is beautiful right. Its proper spiritual as well, to the aboriginals. According to them, some pretty little aboriginal girl called Oolana fell in love with some guy called Dyga (who she wasn't allowed to have), so they ran away to be together. Cute. But of course, them got caught by the tribe eldars. Dyga gets dragged one way, Oolana gets dragged the other, and in despair, Oolana breaks free and throws herself in the river, causing a massive earthquake which threw up all the boulders and rushing, foaming waters. Killer.







Here's the thing though. Apparently, Oolana's spirit still lives in the waters, and its believed that she calls out, drawing young men to the waters edge, as she searches for her lost lover. And guess what, today its one of australians most dangerous natural features - with a load of boys dying here over the years from jumping off the rocks into the killer waters below. Its tempting - the water looks nice, and the rocks are primed for jumping off into the turquoise pools below. But you can *tell* - these waters are dangerous. I was tempted, but I ditched it in favour of taking photos of little bugs on tree branches. I'm so hardcore.





Anyway, after leaving Babinda, we headed down to Mission Beach. I had a personal interest in this site, because right off the coast is DUNK ISLAND. That's right. Its actually called DUNK ISLAND. How much do I love that?



We didn't go to the island though. Its a posh, expensive resort. and its not worth the ferry money across. We're super skint at the moment, so 30 minute ferries JUST because of my name is not worth it. We did have a ball at Mission Beach though. We managed to find this AMAZING hostel which, despite having no room for us, allowed us to stay in practically our own flat, and gave us an amazing discount for the pleasure. I love australia.



Anyway, it chucked it down like mad for hours on Monday. Proper torrential rainforest style weather. It was sick. So we stayed in. But by the morning, things were different. I spent about 2 hours playing in the pool, which Sam suntanned, and Anthony mentally prepared himself to do a skydive. I kinda talked him into it, knowing he was scared of heights, and knowing how competitive he is, I recommended a higher jump. And he went for it.





Sam and I waited patiently on the beach for the plane to appear, and sure enough, we watched as it passed overhead, then saw a white dot drop from 14,000ft to 3,000ft before the parachute opened. Its warmer here than New Zealand, so he's jumping in his shorts, and landing on the beach. Jealous of that, ain't i? But yeah, he loved it. And to celebrate, he cooked us up a BBQ treat in the evening.