Cute little village of Mission Beach…I’m sure a lot of people could just stay here forever! Every morning a little miracle shows on the beach, where thousands of little crabs create the most amazing decorations on the sand by digging little holes to escape the sun and birds during low tide (presumably). They push out of the hole hundreds of sand balls which will be flushed out in the late afternoon when the sea reclaims the beach at high tide. It’s just an amazing show, going on all day and every day. The beach itself is huge and we understand why the owners of the hostel where we are staying where shocked about who little space you have on the beaches in Italy, as they were just coming back from three weeks in Italy. We get to share the room with a couple of young Britons who are here on a working holiday, picking and packing bananas, which is the main produce of this region.
A three hours flight straight north brings us to Cairns, the biggest city on the north-eastern coast. As the doors of the plane open we can immediately feel the tropical humidity taking over. It’s hot and moist here in Cairns, about all year around: max temperatures range from 32 to 25, min temperatures between 24 and 18. Well, if you like seasons you might want to call this boring! But it does make Cairns the best retreat for short holiday breaks during the cold (or so they call them here) winter days in the south. The great waterfront of the town is a beautiful lighted path for people to walk or run, or even exercise since there are open air gyms free for everybody.
Instead of flying directly to Melbourne like we were supposed to, we got rescheduled via Sydney. We therefore reach Melbourne in the early evening and get to the bed and breakfast we booked in South Yarra, an area just south of the city’s central district. Melbourne claims to be the cultural capital of Australia, and we’ll soon find out about it! In the morning we get to the heart of town, at Federation square. This is an impressive sight, so much going on there! Busses, artists, bars, open air exibitions, museums, huge plasma screens, lights and messages of all sorts coming right at you. It’s just a great first impression of this modern and exciting city. No matter where you walk, in the middle of downtown, along the river, crossing the bridge, in China town, all expressions of arts are showing, from the chairs to the statues, to the street signs.