Day 69: Mission Beach - Dunk Island

Today was promising to be a day like all the others. We took the rocking and rolling catamaran over to a very misty and drizzly Dunk Island.

On the island we were herded together with all the other non-resort guests and invited to explore the islands beaches and walking tracks.

If we wished to do any of the other exciting activities, such as kayaking, tennis, swimming in the pool, we would have to pay an additional $40 each for the pleasure. This did include lunch at the resort, though probably not $40 worth. We had already spent $46 each on the boat fare and we had not brought our bathers so we declined the offer.

If we really wanted to swim, the naturist beach on the island didn't cost a cent and lack of bathers wouldn't be a problem...

So off we went on the island circuit, 11km of "moderate" rainforest track. It would have been "moderate" if we had walked in the right direction. We couldn't find the beginning so we asked a member of staff who sent us off in good faith and for 6 1/2km we walked uphill.

The forest was very dense at times and we had to fight foliage and horse flies for the first hour. The track was better after we passed coconut beach, I think most people only get that far and then turn back. We didn't get that option seeing we were walking the wrong way around!

We walked for just over 3 hours, around 30 minutes of that was dry time, the rest was huge, heavy rain drops coming down in sheets. As there was nothing else for us to do on the island we jumped on the next boat back to Mission Beach where the sun finally came out and it was hot, hot, hot.

Lovely, lets see if we can get our towels dry...

Emelie