A Variety of Little Stops Along the Way

The next leg of our trip was marred with rain. It rained for about 3 weeks straight with only occasional breaks. We stayed in the van most of the time, but we did venture out a couple of times.

Taylors Beach & Lucinda

After Alva beach, we headed up north and found a little caravan park in Taylors beach. We were only allowed to stay 2 nights and it rained the whole time, so we actually didn’t explore the area at all. We then headed 15 minutes further north to the town of Lucinda where we stayed for about 5 days. It stopped raining for about 30 minutes one day, so we took a little walk down to the beach behind the caravan park to see the pier. It is the longest service pier in Australia clocking in at just under 6 km. It’s the main pier used for exporting sugar.

Wallaman Falls

One day we decided to don our rain jackets and take a drive up the mountain to see Wallman Falls – the longest single drop waterfall in Australia.

The waterfall drops into a gorge which provides a beautiful, extensive landscape.

The drive out to the falls was interesting – all farmland. One section of the road had tons of cows all over it.

Up in the mountains, we saw all these Cassowary crossing signs. We were joking that we should keep our eyes peeled for cassowaries because we didn’t think we would actually see them, they are so rare. But then suddenly one popped out from the side of the road!

Mission Beach

We took a half-day trip to Mission Beach, a small touristy town where we originally wanted to stay, but it was fully booked. It is a tiny town with a bunch of cafes and restaurants. For some reason I didn’t take many photos, but here is one from the beach.

(You’ll notice that in all these beach photos, there’s no one actually swimming in the water. That’s because this is saltwater crocodile and jellyfish (“stinger”) territory so swimming can cause death…)

Cardwell Spa

On the way to Paronella Park (see next blog and our son’s blog), we stopped at the spa pool at Cardwell. It took us a while to find it, but it was worth it. It’s not a hot spa, but it has a lot of minerals in it which I guess is what makes it a “spa” and gives it its unique colour.