September 15th & 16th
Day One
Mission Beach to Airlie Beach
There are so many tropical beaches along this beautiful coast line one could spend a lifetime just beach hopping from one to another. Strangely, Amanda and I are not beach people per se, like most children and teenagers we both had our fair share of beach days. Amanda’s on the Detroit lakes and at Newport Beach. Mine on the not so sunny south coast pebbly beaches of England, later at Semaphore and West Beach in Adelaide. Those to my eyes then seemed exotic and heavenly enough. Since those heady days of youth we have grown not so keen on ocean swimming, with the exception of snorkelling in tropical waters, all that salt water usually leaves me gagging after an unintended swallow from a recalcitrant wave,. As for sand, well the gritty stuff ends up in places you wish it hadn’t. Yet we are inextricably drawn to tropical sunny coves and bays, where natures natural beauty is on full display. Just a stroll along a sandy beach, listening to the sounds of the gently lapping surf is enough to satisfy us. Somewhere where swaying palm trees meet the ocean always seems magical. Something primordial stirs, that takes us back to the days when we as a species made our first tentative moves out of the warm life giving seas to start new lives as landlubbers.
Today we travelled the 507 kilometres back along the Bruce Highway to Airlie Beach. I last visited here in 1987 when I drove our two boys Troy & Matt to go on a sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands with Amanda’s late Uncle Brian, her Mother Shirley’s bother. I was keen to show Amanda where we had begun our adventurous trip onboard Discovery a 30′ yacht built more for luxury cruising then racing, all those years ago.
Before we leave we take a quick tour of Mission Beach. Archeology has shown that the Djiru aboriginal rainforest people had lived in the region for 5000 years undisturbed by the western world. James Cook anchored of Dunk island on his way north in 1770, then Owen Stanley followed in 1848 aboard the HMS Rattlesnake. The crew traded with the Djiru people until a crew member shot at them, the crew had tried to make an unwelcome entry into a nearby village. The Djiru resisted and the crew retreated. It wasn’t until 1880 that settlers returned to the region, setting up logging operations and employing aboriginal people, paying them with tobacco and tools. Landholdings began to be established in 1886 at nearby Bingil Bay, farming mangoes, bananas, pineapples, coffee, citrus fruits and coconuts. The local Djiru became heavily reliant on one family of land owners, the Cuttens, who found they couldn’t support the whole clan. The Cuttens threatened to exterminate them, but only went so far as to burn down their camp. The law in these days had the aboriginal labour indentured on government wages but the Cuttens took the money and paid the Djiru in rum, even then highly illegal. Fate intervened when a cyclone hit the area in 1918 destroying the Cuttens plantations. Shortly after the Cuttens started selling out, in the process leaving the Djiru’s to fend for themselves, their previous lifestyle and reliance on the rainforest now forgotten and completely destroyed.
It wasn’t until 1949 that Mission Beach, originally a camping ground became a town with a post office, first established in 1949, a school opened in 1953 but closed after cyclones ravaged Mission Beach and the surrounding rainforest in 2006 & 2011. As a result a great of destruction to local property occurred, the beach stripped of sand and rainforest flattened, leaving a heavy impact on rainforest animals in particular the Cassowary. The shy flightless birds emerged in numbers from the rainforest foraging food.
An investment consortium purchased 200 properties here and on Dunk island in 2019 with the intent of turning the area into a tourism mecca, but by 2020 the Dunk island venture had failed and the consortium came under the scrutiny of the Australian Securities and Investment commission (an Australian government organisation set up to investigate dodgy corporate dealings). Since Covid local tourism has boomed but international tourism is only just returning, albeit very slowly.
As we make our way through the rainforest just outside Mission Beach a Cassowary suddenly emerges from the rainforest, there are signs all along the road warning motorists to look out for these rare flightless birds as many are killed by passing traffic. We slow down and stop and attempt to take a photo, all I manage to capture is the retreating back of this large land locked bird with fine black feathers that from a distant resemble hair. There are many dreamtime stories of the Cassowary, the local one sees the bird flying above the rainforest looking for his home, he lands in a muddy area of rainforest, unable to extricate himself he looses his wings and is forever fated to wander the rainforest looking for the home he only recognises from above. Our sighting is indeed a rare one in the wild, previously we have only seen them in captivity. The Cassowary is closely related to the emu not as tall but can grow to 1.8 metres (6′) but much heavier with powerful clawed feet used for rummaging through debris of the thick rainforest floor looking for its main source of food native fruits and berries.
Back on track we head to the Bruce highway for our long trek south, stopping at Cardwell again along the way for a coffee from the mobile cart there at the beachside.
Continuing on, this time skirting around Townsville, gives us a new perspective on how really large this town has grown. Road works are everywhere with new highways, bypasses and flyovers, sending Apple maps into conniptions as we rely on the navigation app instead of the cars GPS, that is sadly now way out of date.
After a couple of unplanned scenic drives, that give us an insight into the backroad farming districts, we are back on the Bruce Highway. The terrain starts to lose the dense verdant rainforest, drying out, trees sparser on the hillsides with brown dry grasses as an infill taking over from wet tropic ferns. Cane fields and banana’s still dominate but cattle start to make an appearance along the roadside properties.
The constant roadworks slow us down, the Bruce Highway is notorious for road accidents and fatalities, as we ourself can attest after our experience on our way north a month ago. Hopefully all this new work will result in a safer road system as this area grows in popularity. By 5.30pm we arrive at Airlie beach, after a little difficulty locating our hotel we check in for our two night stay.
Day Two
After a a restful night we set out to explore the holiday resort village that is Airlie Beach. From our room we could see the main beach and a man made swimming lagoon. All manner of pleasure craft anchor out in the bay. This is where myself and the boys together with Amanda’s family and friends departed for the Whitsunday Islands, visiting Hamilton and Daydream Islands as well as exploring Whitehaven Beach. Airlie Beach is still the gateway to the Whitsunday islands along with Shute Harbour, most sea traffic to the islands goes through these two towns.
The earliest settler at Airlie Beach, a Scottish farmer named Thomas Abell, took up land offered by the Queensland Government in 1904 with the intent to grow fruit and vegetables, the beach thrown in for good measure but of no real value. Thomas and his wife and nine children thrived in the area, with a number of prominent places named after him. The name Airlie came from his Scottish homeland.
it wasn’t until 1968 that the first motel opened for business, accommodating local tourists visiting the area.
Once out of the hotel door we make for the beach and bay area by way of a series of wide pathways that weave in and out of the parklike foreshore area. The changes are dramatic, the bay seems much smaller, rocky breakwaters offering shelter now line the sides of the bay stretching out into the turquoise blue waters. There are large marina’s on both sides of the bay filled with multimillion dollar yachts and motor cruisers. A housing development still incomplete lines the spit of land that is Boathaven Beach, that separates Airlie Bay and Muddy bay. Impressive homes face the beach and the so called Muddy Bay (definitely a misnomer) on one side and the marina on the other, where we imagine their boats are securely moored. Ferry and Whitsunday day cruise ships regularly leave from a terminal deeper into this part of Muddy Bay.
Walking by the marina three Red tailed Black Cockatoo’s land on a nearby small but large leafed tree, its leaves turning vibrant red before falling to the ground.
To our west the green forested hills of the Conway ranges rise sharply, terraced with apartments, seemingly stacked one complex above another as they climb to take advantage of the view.
In 1987 the Airlie Beach post code became famous for the amount of post office boxes that dole (unemployment payments) cheques went too. The town had become a surfer and hippy hangout where the young and free could spend there time on the beach or in the ocean, rent cheap, camping cheaper with a year round temperature that meant power bills didn’t exist. Today they have departed as the camping sites and caravan parks disappeared making way for more expensive exclusive developments. The feel now is of a wealthy tourist resort town. The real hippies from the the baby boomer years grew up and invested here. Listening to accents along the street, there’s German and British, Amanda’s always has us enjoying good service, shop assistants are always surprised to learn we are from Adelaide not the US. The main street is a gaudy tourist orientated place with restaurants and bars pumping out the latest tune at high volume.
The target market seems to be young well heeled singles, but there is definitely a cohort of our age group. The town would have suffered under Covid restrictions but today a Friday there is plenty of music in the streets, both live and recorded, plenty of people in the shops and at the beach or in the lagoon. A curious item draws our attention here in the main street cars are king it seems, the crosswalks have signs saying give way to cars.
The lagoon opened in 2001, as with all the tropical beaches a jellyfish known as a stinger occupy the waters from November to May making the wearing of a stinger protective suit a necessary requirement, with the lagoon safe swimming is possible all year round. Tomorrow the Queensland school holidays start, we imagine the population will explode over the next two weeks. While Segways might be reserved for organised tours, adults and children whizz by on the system of wide pathways riding motorised scooters, both two and three wheeled varieties, one has to rely on their good sense to pause if you are in their way as unlike bicycles the devices don’t seem to have a bell and are quite silent when running.
That’s a snapshot of a day in Airlie Beach, sunny and hot, tonight we treat ourselves to a seafood dinner at a restaurant named Fish D’Vine. Tomorrow we are back on the road headed for another two night stay in Rockhampton.
PS The fish was divine the chowder advertised to rival San Francisco’s and it didn’t disappoint.