Mission Beach & Dunk Island

I arrived at Mission Beach 17:30 in the afternoon. The 3,5-hour bus ride felt relatively short for Australian distances. On arrival I was informed that, it being Saturday, the only supermarket had closed at five and wouldn't be open on Sunday either. Great. I checked the menu of a local restaurant, but since in my budget a suitable price for a meal is $2-3, I didn't want to pay $20 for an Indian meal, when I don't even like Indian food that much. I found a tiny gas station that was open, and bought toast, strawberry jam and crisps. Luckily there was a free BBQ at the hostel that night, but otherwise my weekend diet had do consist of whatever I'd brought with me (not much) or bought in the gas station. I had toast with jam (which really disgusted me as I hate anything sweet with bread), potato crisps for lunch, and pasta with ketchup for dinner. Pretty miserable. On Monday, as soon as I woke up I run to the supermarket and bought a huge pile of fresh, nice food.

On Sunday I hopped (or really, paddled through the waves) on a water taxi for a quick ride to visit Dunk Island just offshore from Mission Beach. According to Lonely Planet, the island boasts a mighty population of 55 people, so it was just what I wanted after all the crowded tourist haunts of the East coast. There were some other tourists but not too many, so I found plenty of nice moments of peace and quiet there. I still haven't grown tired of rainforests, so I decided to have a nice hike to the highest point of the island through them. I love it when I'm walking alone in the forest and all my senses are alert. I hear every crack and see every tiny lizards escaping under the ferns. The light is just stunning on a sunny weather, and I have to stop all the time to just look at the curious plants. I've never been one to care much about scents as my nose isn't very sensitive, but I've found that the rainforest smells lovely. Like damp earth and everything green. I take in very deep breaths to enjoy it.



Besides the hills, I also hiked up to a small beach called Muggy Muggy. I had heard that it was the best place on the island for snorkeling, and I had brought a pack of gear with me that was included in the price of the water taxi. There were only a few people on the beach, and part of the time I had it to myself. I donned on the gear, and put a stinger suit on even though I saw no one else was wearing one. I don't care about looking silly - even though it's quite unlikely to encounter a jellyfish so late into the season, I'd just met one two days ago, and knowing my luck would probably manage to bump into another one if I wasn't well protected.

I walked to the water and stopped ankle-deep to adjust my mask. Just then I saw something big swim in front of me in the shallow water, just one meter from me. SHARK!!! I froze, and watched it glide past me along the shore in knee-deep water. I followed it, walking on the beach, until it dived between two cliffs away from my sight.

I sat on the beach for about an hour, freaking out. I'm absolutely terrified of sharks. This one was only about 1,3 meters long and thus too small to rip my body parts off (except for my toes and fingers, but there wouldn't be much to eat in them so no point doing it). I had read that reef sharks are not aggressive unless provoked, and humans are too big for them anyway to be considered food. I eventually went back to the water and snorkeled for half an hour. I still wasn't relaxed, but lifted my head up every once in a while to keep an eye on any approaching fins above the surface. I didn't dare to swim out to the reef, which maybe was irrational - swimming close to the shore was obviously not any safer, as I had just encountered the object of my fear right where I was.

Later, I managed to think it was pretty cool to see a shark in the wild. However, I would be very, very grateful if this would be the first and last time I ever saw one.

Apart from the island trip I didn't do much on Mission Beach. I found some great books in the hostel's bookshelf and was well entertained with those. I updated my blog at the local travel agency, which didn't go as smooth as I hoped... The lady working there had the loudest voice I've ever heard: I literally flinched any time she opened her mouth, which was way too often. After 2 hours there I had a headache, and wouldn't have been surprised if my eyes had been bleeding.

I also went to the beach one afternoon to watch skydivers landing. I was sooo jealous of them that it made me cringe. I would love to skydive too, but felt that it wasn't the right time. I don't want to do it alone, and wouldn't have any room in my budget anyway...

I went to Mission Beach to see something new and kill a few days, and for that purpose it was a very pleasant place. There would have been more stuff to do, like ocean kayaking and rainforest walks, but I felt lazy and decided just to relax. No regrets!