Cardwell & Saunders Beach

I saw my final sunrise at Mission Beach this morning...well, sort of. I didn’t sleep very well because of the heat and was awake at 5am so got up to admire the pretty dawn colours. I went to sit on the beach to wait for sunrise...except I fell asleep in my chair and missed the magic moment! It was pretty funny, especially as someone else had arrived and I must have looked weird sitting there fast asleep!

We packed up and left Mission Beach this morning, feeling ready to leave our little paradise. We had two new neighbours arrive on either side of us, both of whom were noisy and up til all hours of the morning. Not so easy not to hear noise around you when it’s hot and you are not on power so need to keep all your windows open.

There is always a feeling when you’re ready to move on, and today we both felt that urge to get on the open road again, our little home on wheels following behind us. We felt ready for new adventures.

We bypassed Tully going south and stopped in the pretty town of Cardwell and parked along the foreshore to admire the gorgeous blue-green colour of the ocean and the view, also of Dunk Island. We explored some of the eclectic mix of shops including taking a photo of the giant crab on top of the seafood shop, and of course picked up some supplies for lunch from the local bakery.

Next stop was a stunning lookout across to the nearby large island, Hinchinbrook, so close it felt like you could almost reach out and touch it. Then we decided to have a look at one of the free camps before Townsville. We picked the closest one, only half an hour away. We arrived at Saunders Beach mid afternoon and decided since the beach was lovely and there was one ‘legal’ spot left where we could pull in, that we would stay the night. It is only a small camping area that is probably meant for about 6-8 caravans, with toilets and outside cold showers (no problem in Queensland where it’s either hot and humid or hot, humid and wet!) but after dark the backpackers come and fill up the area, parking where it clearly says ‘no camping’. Perhaps they can’t read...

We spent the afternoon chatting to other campers, Gadi went to the beach for a while and we cooked chicken burgers (again because when I opened the freezer I found the chicken mince had defrosted as we are having trouble with our solar setup, so I put the steaks on hold!) on the gas barbecues - to save taking the Weber out of the car for the one night stop.

As we sat outside to eat we got swarmed by mosquitoes so dashed inside as quickly as we could to get away from the little buggars.

Time to chill out now and hopefully get up early and move on to Townsville early tomorrow.

Night night xxRead more