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  • Day 178

    Mission Beach

    September 27, 2017 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    It seems like forever ago that we were travelling around on buses in South America but today we're back on them again. Our bus leaving Cairns was at 8:15am so it was an early start. The Greyhounds aren't bad to be fair however I'm not sure how I'm going to sleep on one when we have to do an overnight bus. It's only 2 hours to Mission Beach though so we're easing ourselves back in gently.

    We are staying at the Jackaroo Treehouse Hostel which is pretty cool. It's a fair way out from the beach and bus stop though so they put on a regular free shuttle bus to get you around. We are only here for 24 hours so in order to make the best of our time here, the guy on reception suggested we go for a walk in the rainforest and go to Mission Beach. We couldn't check in until 1pm anyway so we jumped on the next bus and got dropped off at Djiru National Park. Here we could do the Dreaming Trail which was a 3.2km walk through the rainforest and the shuttle would pick us on on the other side in 2 hours time. This has seemed like a great idea when he suggested it but around 30 minutes in we regretted not just going to the beach. We have spent the last week in the rainforest getting eaten alive by horse flys (those are the worst) and Mosquitos. It was also stupidly hot and sweaty. There was no turning back though so we powered through to the end. It took us around an hour to do the walk so we had another hour to kill until we were getting picked up. Fortunately I found a sign for a swimming spot so I didn't waste any time jumping in. It was so nice to be in the cool water. Simon didn't get in and instead just paddled whilst going on a horse fly murder spree. They don't even care if you wear insect repellent. They are savage!

    I think we actually whooped when the bus arrived to take us back to the hostel. We got back around 2:15pm and made some lunch as we hadn't eaten since breakfast. I feel like this significantly contributed to the lack of enthusiasm towards the rainforest walk also.

    After lunch we jumped on the bus again and got dropped down at Mission Beach where we chilled out for a couple of hours and watched the numerous skydivers land on the beach. A skydive has never appealed to me however watching them all float in looked kinda awesome so now I am a little tempted.

    Back at the hostel we cooked some dinner and had a lazy evening. It's a shame we don't have longer here as it really is a lovely hostel.
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