The day started out, for me, bright and early with a walk around the rainforest trying to catch a photo of the Cassowary we keep hearing. No luck though.

Toyota that didn’t make it

Hannah and Blake had some fun with the local girls learning how mail gets delivered up here.

We eventually made our way down to the beach and had a swim and bake for a few hours.

Not many people on the beach this morning.  We nearly had the place to ourselves.  It was already heating up nicely and it was a constant shuffle between towel to cook and surf to chill.

After the beach, we took a drive back up north towards the start of the dirt track heading towards Cooktown.

Speed limit is slow up here for good reason

We had a bit of a walk around one of the short walks up here too, but we were getting restless.

So once we got to the bloomfield track heading towards Cooktown, we just kept on driving.  The track is in great condition and we could’ve gotten to Cooktown if we’d been more committed and started much earlier in the day.

As it was, we got about 1/3rd of the way up the track and stopped beside a creek and had some lunch before heading back.

The only problem was the dust.  Following any other car within eyesight was impossible due to the dust cloud.  There was absolutely no wind so it hung around forever.  The result was that the whole road traveled at the speed of the slowest vehicle … which was about 60kmh if we were lucky.

Once we got back to the resort I set off into the rainforest again determined to find that damn Cassowary and chicks!

After wandering around in there for awhile without ANY luck I decided to backtrack back to the van.  It was then I noticed that the Cassowary was following me.

The photos are out of focus due to it being a bit dark and me not wanting to use the flash.

He had 2 chicks in tow and wasn’t too fussed about me following him around for a bit.

Mission finally accomplished, it was back to Hacienda L’Expanda.

Nice quiet spot.  We only had a few others keeping us company.

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