178-180 Wongaling Beach (22/9 - 24/9)

After our little detour to Paronella Park, and being in the "metropolis" of  Cairns, we were itching to get out and find where our journey next took us next.

After raving about the Tablelands so much, Nain and Tadcu had decided that they would love to head up to Malanda and check it out for themselves. Not wanting to leave them too far behind, we decided that we'd head for an area that I had longed to head to after missing my mate Tim's wedding years and years ago. Mission Beach.

To be precise, we stayed in Wongaling Beach, a few kilometres down the road, but it's all considered the same part of the world.

Now this one beautiful piece of paradise. We loved our time here, nice and relaxed and with a bit of weariness and mild illness for some (as experienced by Nain and Tadcu too) this was a brilliant place to recharge the batteries.

This is Wongaling Beach. Just postcard perfect. And it was no more than 100m from our caravan, parked across the other side of the road at the Bali Hai Caravan Park.

See! Here we are. An interesting park, with sites not overly well defined. But with it being pretty stinking hot, we decided to plug into the grid to run the air conditioner too. Not often we bust out the additional shade sail too, but was required. Notice the bed also folded up? A little trick we learnt with the Gecko was to fold the bed up when using the air-con, helped cool the internal space quicker and more efficiently. Kind of like zoning off your house at home.

And would you believe it, on our first trip into Mission Beach, we saw a cassowary strolling along the roadside before disappearing into the scrub. Another animal ticked off the Animal Bingo sheet! 

We spent the morning exploring the area, like walking up and down Garners Beach, a little piece of sand hidden out the back roads.

We had spied the Perry Harvey jetty on the way through and decided that a fish on the way home was required. Whilst we weren't successful, we did spy one of the biggest fish I've ever seen. A resident groper calls the jetty home, feeding on little fish and bait discarded from frustrated anglers. You had to make sure you knew where he was so to get your hook and line out of the way. If you hooked him, you'd have no chance of reeling him in, despite the fact that I believe they are a protected species, as he was more than likely near the 100kg mark.

In this area you can grow just about anything. We'd been told of a little fruit shed near the jetty where we found a huge range of locally grown produce at absurdly cheap prices. $4 for a giant pumpkins... It was hard to leave anything behind.

Nain and Tadcu had managed to smuggle 3 bottles of my favourite drop from the UK into their bag. The Mighty Reverend James.

A lot of time was spent simply walking along the beach, swimming in the water, and doing general beach stuff. A perfect little getaway, quiet compared to the busier Mission Beach.

Evie wasn't feeling the best one day, so the boys and I went exploring for somewhere else to fish. We figured somewhere around there we'd find a spot. And we did, the boat ramp at Hull Heads. Plenty of boats coming and going with fish on them, so we were confident!

Sam was first on the board. He's modelling Evie's hat because he didn't bring his and I said he wasn't allowed out of the car without one. The only hat available, Evie's hat! Took him a little convincing, but he gets his stubborness from his Dad.

James and I then hooked our versions of the same little fish. Lots of bites but not much real action... We actually thought it might have been because this little ramp too had a big resident grouper too. We didn't see him as much, but a big flash at one of the fish proved to me he was hanging around.

This is Evie in "sick" mode. Basically, she turns into a nice, quiet young girl! 

And just when we thought we might get going, James' rod goes off like a rocket... After a good little fight, James managed to pull in this juvenile barracuda of all things. He was so stoked, and I was quietly glad he didn't snag Mum or Dad. I think James might have been grouper food!

We did a day tour out to Charley's Chocolate Factory (http://www.charleys.com.au), a cleverly named local farm and factory that spruiks from "tree to bar" process. One of the few places that does. For the record it was named after the owners dog from recollection.

It was really interesting to follow the growing process of the plantation, the first of its kind in Australia. Didn't know there was so much to learn about chocolate!

Chocolate is a fruit! There you have it!! It's practically a health food!

The vines are grown on a state of the art system that was designed by a gentleman from down in Shep of all places. Given the locality, the crop are exposed to cyclones and the system recently protected a majority of the crops from damage. 

We love places that come with worksheets for the kids. Homework on chocolate!

And at the end presentation, along with an included burger and drink, the kids who passed the test became Masters of Chocolate.

After James also decided to suffer a little bit of crookness, that left Sam and I (along with B who was happy to sit and read on the beach) to explore up and down Wongaling Beach. We took the frisbee and created a new game in the windy conditions where we had to get the disc flying like a boomerang, bending back to the other person. Here's Sam letting one fly!

Just a beautiful spot.

Always a milestone moment when you finish a Harry Potter book and get to watch the movie! Here the kids are getting stuck into the 3rd movie. For some reason the TV didn't want to play the file so it was the trusty laptop to the rescue linked with the outdoor speaker for big scary sound!

And it was then we realised that perhaps the Potter series was getting a little 'dark' for this 5yr old. The dementors were not a favourite!!

And just like that, time to go and meet up with the Welshies. We did manage to grab a shot of the Big Green Lizard with the Big Cassowary.