Despite the heavy rains overnight, we decided to chance our luck and headed to Cape Hillsborough early to catch wallabies on Casuarina Beach.

Arriving into the Cape Hillsborough Nature Tourist Park at 7.30am, Andy went off on his final 10km run of January before going on a trek to Twin Beach Lookout.

It was a case of getting out between showers.

With Andy’s run done, we had a wander and checked out the views of the rainforest meeting the beach.

With signs that the rain might be tapering off, we got ourselves psyched up to walk along the headland to Twin Beach Lookout.

As we started our hike we came across a flock of Red tailed Black Cockatoo’s who were happily eating their way through the berries lining the forest floor.

No sooner had we started the walk, the rain arrived and on came the Macs to keep us dry.

We had planned to do the full 4km hike around the headland, but the wind and rain were so strong we made it to the first lookout at Twin Beach, before accepting it was best to turn back and avoid getting soaking wet.

Typically as soon as we were back on the beach and close to the car, the rain subsided, so we decided to go on a bush walk in search of kangaroos and wallabies.

Lucky for us we found ourselves a friendly wallaby munching on some grasses.

With rains returning again before lunch, we returned to Mackay and escaped the harsh storm.

As the weather improved in town we decided to visit the botanical gardens and relax with a coffee.

The gardens sit alongside lagoons on the edge of town, and were awash with local birdlife.

The gardens were impressive and we managed a 2km walk along the lagoon bank without being interrupted by the rain.

The lagoons were filled with water lilies alongside a bounty of birds & plants.

As the heat rose out came the Darter birds to sunbathe and dry out their wings.

The lagoon was covered in Araucaria and Cryptomeria making it look like a carpet of greenery.

We also caught sight of an Australasian Swamphen, to add to the list of the other birds we’d seen today.

After an afternoon in nature, we returned to our apartment before taking a pictorial history walk on the Mackay waterfront.

It’s been a day of showers, so we got lucky again to stay out for a hour along the estuary front, before making our way to Cole’s for dinner.

As we left, the rains returned and we made a mad dash to our Quest apartment just in time.

The rest of the evening was spent listening to the heavy rains, which we now understand is the tail end of a tropical cyclone!

Think we will definitely be returning south to get away from the tropical rains that look to be fixed in the region for the next few weeks.

Tomorrow we plan to drive on to Airlie Beach and our planned stay at the Eco lodge for a couple of days.