About Mission Beach
Mission Beach is a series of interconnected villages – South Mission Beach, Wongaling Beach, Mission Beach, Bingal Bay, Brooks Beach, Carmoo and Garners Beach – a 14 km beach on one side, and the World Heritage Tropical Rainforest on the other side. Thoughtful promotion has turned these sleepy villages into a desirable holiday resort destination. The road leading to the beachside suburbs is known as Cassowary Drive because the district is home to the beautiful bird, the Cassowary. Mission Beach’s claim to fame is that it is one of the last areas on the north Queensland coast where tropical rainforest actually reaches down to the shoreline. The rainforest is the habitat not only of the elusive cassowary but of parrots, wallabies and impressive butterflies (sourced from the Aussie Towns website – click for more).
Back down on the coast again, staying at Tasman Holiday Parks – South Mission Beach (maplink). This is a truly lovely part of Queensland, with views of Dunk Island, and it was also great to be able to jump in the ocean again for a swim.
Our first cassowary encounter
After setting up our caravan onsite I settled down to read my book while Merrisa took a snooze inside. There was movement out of the corner of my eye and I looked up to come face to beak with a cassowary – WOW! He walked right past me, under our caravan awning, out to the front. Lucky I had my camera ready. We also had a visit from a local goanna as well.
Around Mission Beach South
As mentioned earlier, this is a beautiful place to stay and you can see why there’s a lot of retirees putting down their roots here.
Summing up…
- Accommodation – Tasman Holiday Parks – Mission Beach (website)
- Cost per night – $38.25 (@ 13-Oct-2020)
- Facilities – Good – modern & clean
- CP Location – 122-132 Kennedy Esplanade, South Mission Beach (maplink)
- Our rating/score – 8/10
- Was it a nice town to visit? – great place with a truly beautiful beach
- Activities & places of interest – not much. A great chill out location
- Tourist info centre? – 55 Porter Promenade, Mission Beach (website)
- Would we return? – yes
- Overall Score – 8/10
- Summing up – Loved our stay here; a top spot, right on the beach. The accidental meeting of a cassowary was pretty amazing
