We didn’t really have a plan for Queensland other than ‘fly into Cairns and head down to Brisbane’. We had given ourselves 12 days to do it, but hadn’t mapped out all the places we wanted to stop. We were just flying by the seat of our pants as we went. As a result, at this point, we’d been in Queensland for 5 days and all we had done was head north instead of south. First, we went up to the Daintree Rainforest, then back down to Cairns, then another detour northwest of Cairns to visit Kuranda.
So, once we left Kuranda, we were officially on track with “the plan” to head south. It was late in the day when we left and we knew we wouldn’t make it too far before we needed to stop for dinner and a hotel. I looked at the map and decided that Innisfail would be a good stopping point based on the location. While Matt drove that direction, I started looking for a place to stay and immediately realized that the choice of Innisfail was a #fail. It was a town that mostly catered to backpacking migrant workers that work at the banana farms and sugar cane fields in town. There just wasn’t a lot there in terms of options. While we don’t require 5-star lodging, I also didn’t think we were ready for dorm-style accommodations!
I found a town just a little further south of Innisfail called Mission Beach. It also looked like a small town, but the hotel prospects looked much more promising (and beachy to boot)! There was a hotel available called Castaways Resort where we could get a room with space for all 3 of us. We were originally only going to stay one night, but since we were getting in so late already, we opted to book two nights instead. We arrived after 7pm and it was already dark, but we hadn’t had a chance to have dinner yet. We all looked like a hot mess after our meltdown day in Kuranda, so we checked in and grabbed some quick showers before heading to a late dinner in the hotel restaurant. The hotel property is very small and there’s only one on-site restaurant. The food and service were spectacular, though, and it was a nice end to a day that had certainly had its ups and downs!
Even though it was dark and we couldn’t see much of it, we could see palm trees and a beach, which seemed like a promising start…
The Detour Diary 