All day drive Airlie Beach to Mission Beach

All day drive Airlie Beach to Mission Beach 

We had breakfast in the hotel and left at 8.00am for an hour's drive to Bowen.

Many places in Australia are famous for something and there are lots of mangoes grown here. It is a marvellous fruit and must be one of my top five. The Information Centre in Bowen has a giant mango...and it has an ant painted in the centre.

Under a tree next to the mango is another piece of art, a helmet crab. 

There was a power outage at the centre so we were robbed of our morning coffee but we would have another stop soon. 

We reached Home Hill, named after a hill defended by Australian troops during the Gallipoli campaign. We stopped to stretch our legs, have a pee and get a coffee. The railway reached here in 1890s to service the local goldfields which by that time, production had started to drop off and miners were drifting away to other new gold field finds and the impetus for building a railway lessened.

                                        

we ran up a gentle slope to cross a bridge over the river. To one side was a sugar mill and refinery. Plus also sidings for the networks of narrow gauge railway that connect the sugar plantations to the mills. The network is the largest narrow gauge network in the southern hemisphere

The oldest and the newest sugar mills coincidentally are in the same nearby town.

The combined rail and road bridge over the river.

A view of the river which the bridge crosses, largely sand and shrub but it does show that in the rainy season, there is a lot more flow.

A view of the flowing river on the northern side of the almost dry but wide riverbed. 

We arrived in Townsville, a large city with government offices, a large port, zinc and nickel smelters and a large mine inland at Mount Isa. The city is dominated by a large hill with a lookout over the city.

The city beach at midday, totally deserted but there was no lifeguard and a no swimming sign.

Magnetic Island just offshore. Its nt magnetic but James Cooks' compass went wrong just here and he blamed the island.

A distant view of the port facilities.

The Barrier Reef's largest island, Hinchinbrook, just offshore from the mainland at Cardwell.

The giant mud crab at Cardwell.

Looking along the railway lines towards the station at Cardwell.

We passed the town with the longest pier but I have forgotten its name and didn't take a photo.

We went through Tully, famous for its big boot, a large Wellington Boot which like the Mango, the place is well known for.

Another Tully sign with a big boot.

We also went through Ingham and past the hotel where Dusty Slim was given the poem that he recorded as The Pub with no Beer. On the pavement roof, there is a cowboy on a horse but I wasn't quick enough to get that photo.

And then we arrived in Mission Beach and found our hotel  nearby.