5/19/06
Innisfail and Mission Beach

We began our long drive south from Port Douglas today to eventually reach Sydney in 16 days. On our way south, we passed through Innisfail, which was where a category 5 cyclone made landfall about two months ago. The area is slowly recovering from the devastation, but there is still a lot of work to be done. Many of the road signs are missing, and the surrounding rain forests have been torn to shreds. Blue tarps were covering many of the roofs that have blown away in the storm.

The sugar cane in the area has been stunted in growth from the flooding and high winds and much of the banana crop was ruined. Since this area supplies much of Australia with bananas, prices for this fruit has skyrocketed to $10AUD/kilo.

All the banana plants were flattened by Cyclone Larry, but many of them have stood back up in the last couple of months and should be producing fruit again in several months.

We arrived in Mission Beach in the afternoon, and took a walk by the ocean. Coral is scattered all over the beach, and beautiful specimens were found within minutes. It was a little windy, but still another beautiful day in the tropics.

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