From Cairns to Innisfail to Etty Bay
Are you traveling around Cairns? You’re in the right place! There are a lot of interesting places to go, right? If I may, I suggest you to drive a bit more to the south. About 100 km, you’ll find a small town – Innisfail – I don’t know if you’ve ever heard about this town. Anyways, I’m not going to tell you to stop there. Keep driving to the South.
More or less 15 minutes from Innisfail, you’ll find a beach named Etty Bay. I think this beach is quite famous among backpackers. There’s a small caravan park for people who are on a road trip. It’s also famous among the locals. Well, in the outback like Innisfail (can it be called an outback? Anyways…), there’s no entertainment.
I mean, what do you expect from a small town? There are cafes, restaurants, bars, pubs, yes… but most of them are closed in the evenings. I think the restaurant in Crown Hotel is closed at 2 am on weekends (it has pokies, by the way). So my point is that that is one of the reasons the locals like to go to Etty Bay. At least, that’s based on my observation during my 10 month-stay nearby.
Cassowaries
I personally don’t go there too often. I was busy working and I didn’t find it too exciting especially after the first visit. It’s just a beach. But there’s something special with it. We can see cassowaries! Yes, for real! Cassowaries in the wild! Australia is famous for the wildlife animals and cassowary is one of them. But before you go there, make sure you don’t have any hope to see the cassowaries. Because if you have that feeling, I’m afraid you won’t see anything. That’s just the way it works.
I didn’t think about cassowaries in my first visit (I didn’t know and no body told me). My co-workers only told me that Etty Bay is a nice beach to swim. As I swam, all of a sudden and out of nowhere, the clothes and my bag that I hung on the tree were almost stolen by 2 cassowaries. I panicked and ran towards the tree to rescue my stuff.
Luckily, those 2 cassowaries walked away after finding out that nothing was interesting in my bag. But everything fell down on the sand. My stuff got dirty. I didn’t mind, though. Because I got to see the wildlife animals! I took out my phone and took pictures of them.
Yes, I know. They look harmless, don’t they? But trust me, their claws are so freaking sharp. When I was admiring them, a woman came to me and warned me to make a distance with those cassowaries. She said that their legs are very powerful. It is estimated that a cassowary can deliver a forceful kick with the power of up to 1,000 pounds per square inch.
She also told me that the brown one is the chick and the adult one is the father. He’s taking care of his baby. I thought it was the mother. The lady made it clear that male cassowary is the one who takes the responsibility to take care of the chicks. So cute!
Sadly, in the Wet Tropics region, they’re endangered! Only an estimated 4,400 cassowaries left in the wild. That’s why the government protect them so much. And it turned out that the woman who’s talking to me was the member of wildlife rescue team. She told me those 2 cassowaries keep coming to the beach because the visitors feed them.
It’s actually against the rule. We are not permitted to feed the wildlife. But there are still a lot of people who do that. I’ve seen a bunch of high school boys fed them Maccas! No wonder why they keep coming to the beach to ask for food to us human. But for that reason, I could see the cassowaries at that time. That’s a fortunate for me and an unfortunate for the cassowaries’ lives.
Fishing At Etty Bay
Still with the cassowaries around, my boss showed me how to fish with the net. He went into the sea until more than half of his body was in the water. I saw that with fright. There’s a sign at the front of the beach saying that crocodiles are in this area! We’re not allowed to swim outside the stinger nets. But now, my boss and my co-worker…?!
They threw and pulled several times and got some fish. He explained to me what fish he had got. But none of them stuck in my brain. I like eating fish but I never know what fish I’m eating. Is that a sin?
My boss also showed me several unique things he found on the beach. One of them was a jelly blob. It was like a raindrop cake! In Australia it’s called jelly sack. I heard that people, kids in particular, like to play with jelly sacks. They throw them to each other. No wonder. They look like nothing but a jelly. Well, it turned out that jelly sacks are an egg mass laid by moon snails. So they’re actually a living creature! That’s why my boss threw it back to the sea after explaining. That was new for me. I never saw that kind of thing before in Indonesia.
Just so you know that when doing the fishing and everything, the 2 cassowaries were still there. They even chased us to get one of the fish. But they couldn’t take any for we put the fish inside a cool box.
Bali-Vibe Cafe in Bingil Bay
Second stop after Etty Bay, I went to Bingil Bay in Mission Beach – still with my boss and co-workers (including my husband, Aldi). It’s not a beach. Well, technically, there’s a beach nearby, but our destination was not it. It was enough beach for the day. We needed something to eat and I was starving!
It was dark already when we’re on the way. We drove from farm to farm which I was sure would be beautiful on the daylight. However, it felt scary at night. Anyways, we arrived there eventually – at Bingil Bay Cafe. I was amazed. It was like in the middle of nowhere but suddenly a cozy cafe popped up (later on I found out that it was not really in the middle of nowhere).
I didn’t have the pictures of the food but it was all nice. I ordered salmon steak or grilled salmon something, Aldi ordered calamari something, and the others chose burger. The portion was giant! You know, I always think western food is plain (pardon my Asian tongue), but the food that night was so very okay. I also loved the vibes there. Made me miss my country – Bali particularly.
We didn’t stay long in the cafe for it was almost closing time when we got there. But we still had one more stop.
Perry Harvey Jetty
We parked at the side of the road. My boss and co-worker took out fishing rods and cool box for the second time of the day. There was a bridge (or should I say a jetty?), and we walked on it. It was a nice view from there!
The sky was so clear, I could see the moon shining so bright up there. Even though my thalassophobia was screaming all the way! The jetty was about 500 meters (I guess?) and we walked to the end. My boss and co-worker prepared everything and started fishing.
It was one of the most famous fishing spots in Mission Beach. I saw some people fishing. There were even 2 ladies fishing without fishing rods. They used only the fishing lines instead. But that worked! They got some small fish and squids.
What about my group? We got some fish as well. But they were the same kinds as the fish we got at Etty Bay. My boss almost got big fish – twice – but he lost them. He said the fishing rods he brought were not for big fish. The lines were cut a couple of times because he had to pull hard.
The night got colder. I was so ready to go home, but it looked like my boss wanted to stay longer. He always forgets about time when it comes to fishing. Well, lucky me, it rained all of a sudden. Unfortunately, he kept fishing no matter how heavy the rain was.
The rain got heavier and that became the cue for my boss to stop. We ran to the car without any umbrella. I was freezing! But it was a fun day!
