Townsville to Mission Beach

The aquarium in Townsville bills itself as the "World's Largest Living Coral Reef Aquarium," and it really is impressive - we found it hard to leave. Besides looking at the fish, we went to a "Predator Talk" where there was a diver in the tank with several kinds of sharks, and visited the Turtle Hospital. Australia has 6 of the world's sea turtle species and in the tanks, recovering from propeller strikes or from eating plastic (thinking it was a jellyfish), were a 3 month old Flatback turtle, a Green turtle and a Hawksbill.

A turtle in a tank at the Turtle Hospital

 After our visit to the Aquarium we had to high tail it up the highway to get to our destination before dark (driving gets dangerous here at dusk when critters are on the move - you don't want to hit a kangaroo - like hitting a deer or moose at home). But we couldn't resist stopping at the big gumboot in the town of Tully - they claim to be the wettest town in all of Australia, and the gumboot shows how much rain they received in 1950 - a record 7,900 mm! Inside the boot there's a spiral staircase you can climb, which gives a good view of the sugar mill.

The sugar mill from the top of the gumboot

On our drive from the highway down to the small town of Wongaling Beach, south of the better known Mission Beach, we saw a lot of signs to slow down, Cassowary Crossing, but we didn't see one. At our B&B we were told we'd just missed one that had walked across the road.