Mission Dunk Island - Mission Success!

We are going there!

By David

So one day Tracey asks “do you think we could spend a night camping”.  When we started out on our lap of Australia we had always planned to do the odd night camping away from Cool George, so of course I answered yes.  But then she added, what if we camped on a tropical island could we possibly manage that?  Ahhhh sure, well I think so, maybe, most likely.  And that is how our first camping adventure ended up on a tropical island.

By Tracey

I was more than a bit nervous.  We aren’t really campers, we have done a bit with family but not much by ourselves.  In fact until this trip we weren’t caravanners and we are definitely still learning how to do that. Could we pull this off?  But the other side of me said – start with one night if its super bad just sleep the next few days. How much could really go wrong anyway?.

We packed up all our gear (hoping we didn’t miss anything crucial because there was no going back), thought through in our heads how this would work, what could go wrong, what would we need then.  We had three things that made it easier, it was one night, the island had a working toilet and water and it was the home of the repeater for Mission Beach so had great mobile reception if things went pear shaped.  Then we watched the forecast and hoped the miserable wind and rain would just take a break.

By David

How lucky were we.  The day arrived and the rain disappeared. We arrived at the water taxi at 11am and loaded our gear on to a sort of trailer, we then had to wade out to the boat (my mid thigh, Tracey’s well bum and the boys up to their waists) and load our gear on to the water taxi.  Getting off the water taxi was interesting, Dunk has a jetty and our boat pretty much rammed itself gently up the stairs with the driver gunning the engines to stay there.  The day trippers got off and then us – me handing the stuff to Tracey on the stairs, her hoisting it up on the jetty (no help other than the boys who tried so hard to be helpful). 

We lugged our stuff to our campsite.  It was a treat – beautiful view, path right to the beach.  We couldn’t believe this was all ours for the princely sum of $23.95 per night (+ the taxi of course).   Setting up camp wasn’t too hard – it had been a while since we set this tent up but the brain cells still worked and in not too long a time we had our set up for the next 28 hours.

Our view! 

Us set for the night.

By Tracey

We had brought an esky which we filled with ice just before leaving and basically picnicked through all our meals.  Our table was a bit too sunny so we used nice shady one next door.  For dinner we chose another spot with a better view of the sunset, for breakfast a different vantage again.  As it turned out no-one else had booked a site.  Our own tropical island for $24 hard to believe.

By Mr L

Dunk Island makes me feel happy because there were so many butterflies and we found some wings on the ground. It was the best day we ever had, because we did camping on the beach. At night we saw toads and frogs, they were easy to see because they were gold, green and brown. They made me feel a bit grossed out because they were all over the place.

You should go to Dunk Island because it is so beautiful, you can snorkel and see coral and fish, build rock towers and swim in warm water.

The ground was a bit hard to sleep on I would prefer to try our stretcher beds next time.

Mum and Dad let us have a midnight (around 8pm) feast consisting of biscuits and special treat fruit chew lollies and we played UNO by torch light.

By Mr C

Dunk Island is AWEMAZING!  I would recommend it totally. I liked the beautiful butterflies that were everywhere on the island.  We were the only ones camping there it was like we had the whole island to ourselves.  The beaches were excellent and there were no crocs near here.  We swam in 3 different beaches and they were all beautiful, we even found some kids at one beach.  I really liked camping there. We got a great site with a little sand walkway right from our tent to the beach. I also loved the trips on the water taxi they were amazing.  On the way back there were lots of waves making the water fly against my window and wash into the back of the boat.  The ride to the mainland was better than a theme park ride!

The Beaches

By the time we had set up and had a leisurely lunch it was time to head to a beach – but which one.  We decided on Muggy Muggy which was down the beach in front of us and through a short rainforest walk.  As we headed to this beach all the day trippers passed us heading back to the jetty.  By the time we arrived we had a deserted tropical island beach all to ourselves.  The water was warm, but unfortunately the last few days of wind and rain meant that it was murky making our snorkelling there a bit difficult.  Still over the next two days we all had a good practice and we got to see some coral and tropical fish.

Muggy Muggy Beach 

Brammo Bay Beach

  

A Ghost Town?

Most of you probably all know that Dunk Island was once the setting for a major resort (in fact I stayed there with a friend many years ago).  Unfortunately Dunk and Bedarra Islands were also the epicentre for the landing of Cyclone Yasi in 2011.  From the beach the ~500 people resort appears abandoned and deserted.  The once premium beachfront accommodation is wrecked and vegetation is beginning to claim it bit by bit.

But a bit further along the beach was the main entrance to the old resort and it and its signature Ulysses butterfly pool were pristine.

We were perplexed by this, and only Mr C and Mr L were able to solve the mystery.  As I have said before kids love kids and ours are not unique in this.  As we swam on the beach in front of our campsite two kids and their mum started walking along the beach.  In a minute one of the kids had their clothes off and was in the water with ours.  Mums of course then chat as we watch kids swim.  It turns out there is a small staff at the resort which was sold after the cyclone.  The owners use the resort for private functions and are planning to turn it into a 6 star resort in the future.  For the present some accommodation off the beach has been restored and the landscaping is being reinstated.  There is also a café near the jetty which is open Fri to Sun.  However, all this information didn’t stop the place having an eerie feeling especially later in the evening when the resort was mostly dark. 

View from our campsite to the resort

Night time on the island

Dinner was a relaxed picnic with us still in our swimmers, but with magnificent views and a superb sunset.  We got to shop around for our dinner table so of course chose the best one.  After dinner we decided to do a night walk on the beach and went down to the jetty.  To our surprise there were people fishing and apparently they had heard us laughing our way through our dinner (the boys were doing silly voices).  They said it made them really smile.

We went back to the tent for our tropical night feast instead of dessert.  I won’t say it was a restful night of great sleep.  But it was a beautiful, warm tropical night.  The breezes were soft, the stars were out and there wasn’t a drop of rain.  Really can it get any better than this.

Sunset Café

The next morning we were up with the sun and the birds, albeit a bit stiff and sore (well David and I were the boys seemed fine).  Again we had the choice of the island for our breakfast table so went in search of some sun to warm us all up.  We found a lovely table next to the Sunset Café near the jetty and to make my life totally blissful the chef turned up (turned out he was the father of yesterday’s kids) and offered me a cup of tea.  I had been wrong, life had just got even better.

 Sunrise on Dunk Island (after all we were up with the sun)

 

We went for a nice long morning walk on deserted beach after deserted beach.  We tried to get the boys to do the mountain walk but all they wanted was to go back to Muggy Muggy beach and do more snorkelling and rock tower building.  Who were we to argue?  The morning taxi arrived at 9 so after that we actually had to share the beach with other people (the cheek of it). 

We lunched back at our campsite – this time at our own table.  Packed our things up and went swimming again.  We all indulged in an icecream from the café and then it was time to go back to Mission Beach.  The taxi was totally full (fortunately a passenger or two helped us on this time) and the ride was bumpy.  The boys loved it!

All of us loved the feeling of being on a tropical island and would love to do it again sometime.

And in answer to the earlier question, yes we can handle camping away from the caravan and actually can’t wait to do it again.