Dunk Island Visit and Review
While in Australia we visited a couple of Islands. We really wanted to go to Fraser Island and Lizard Island but never had the chance (there was a hurricane warning while we had the chance to go to Fraser Island and the island was closed) we ended up taking advantage of the massive waves and surfing instead.
We ended up visiting Green Island and Dunk Island. We had a blast at Dunk Island so that is why I decided to do a Dunk Island review.
We were living in Cairns at the time and drove down from Cairns to Mission Beach. The trip took about two hours, to get to Mission Beach but it is a pretty cool drive (lots of sugar cane fields and mountains) there are two ways to get from Mission Beach to Dunk Island that we knew of. You can take the ferry for $56 return per person and takes about 20 minutes to get there, OR take the Dunk Island water taxi which costs $30 return and only takes 10 minutes. For that price you cant lose! We met up with the water taxi on Mission Beach
The water taxi from Dunk Island to Mission Beach
After the quick ten minute ride we were ready to enjoy Dunk Island! The first thing we did was check out the beach (because that’s where we were dropped off 
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Checking out the Beach at Dunk Island
Catamaran on Dunk Island
Dunk Island Catamaran
After seeing what the island had to offer, which is actually alot (they have a tonne of water sports, golf, tennis, a hotel, snorkelling, great walking trails and more) we decided to walk up to the top of the mountain! Ok it turned out the trip to the top of the mountain and back was going to take a long time (and we had to be back in time to catch the water taxi) So we just went on a hike for about an hour. There is a lot to see on the walking trails
walking trail on Dunk Island
Cool strangling vine going up this tree
Just watch out for the spiders!
Would NOT want to walk into this spider web!
Huge spider
Sammy thought that this was a pretty neat tree. It turns out this is a fig tree, but it wasnt the biggest fig tree we saw while in Australia! I’ll get to that in another post though.
A neat little fig tree
After enjoying the natural beauty of the island and dodging man eating spiders, the trail led out to a secluded beach, lined with coconut trees! Ahhhhhhhhhhh nice
A beautiful beach lined with Coconut trees
We took a little stroll down the beach
If you look hard you can find neat things on the beach. I found this little starfish (it looks like he's hailing a cab!)
After seeing all of the natural beauty on the island we were ready to do something a bit crazy. We decided to go tubing! Dunk Island has all kinds of water sports to try, but we only had time to sneak in one event so we went with tubing. The price was fair I think it was $59 for all three and we stayed out for quite a while!
We had such a blast tubing, we went on a three person tube and hung on for dear life
After tubing got our heart rates going we sat down at the beach bar, had a few beers and waited for the water taxi to arrive.
After having such a great time on Dunk Island none of us wanted to leave! If we knew the island was going to be this much fun we would have booked 3 nights at the resort. If we ever come back to Australia we will definitely re-visit Dunk Island.
The day did not end here though after the water taxi ride we noticed that there were massive Coconuts on the beach, which we collected and used to make some tropical drinks that night 
Also one of the most exciting moments of our trip happened on the way home when we got to see a Cassowary in the wild! It was pretty exciting and I will put a post up about that later.
Thanks for reading, and leave a comment below
You can see some more pictures in the gallery below and view them full size.
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- We had such a blast tubing, we went on a three person tube and hung on for dear life
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- Cool strangling vine going up this tree
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- If you look hard you can find neat things on the beach. I found this little starfish (it looks like he’s hailing a cab!)
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- A neat little fig tree
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- The water taxi from Dunk Island to Mission Beach
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- walking trail on Dunk Island
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- Dunk Island Catamaran
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- Checking out the Beach at Dunk Island
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- A beautiful beach lined with Coconut trees
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- Catamaran on Dunk Island
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- This is a huge spider web in Australia
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- We took a little stroll down the beach
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- huge spide in Australia
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Your photos of Dunk Islands are beautiful. I was there last year and like the review you have made there. I have also some photos from Dunk Island that have been (or will soon be posted) on my blog, and on the Australia folder to be precise http://brohardphotography.blogspot.com/search/label/Australia
(thanks for having left a word on Mt Kootaloo Dunk Island photo)
Hi there! Nice pics!
I want to go to Dunk Island this (European) summer and take a walk to Mt Kootaloo. The Lonepy Planet as well as the website of Dunk Island tell that it’s about a three hour-walk. Is it possible in three hours cause you didn’t take the climb or didn’t you stay that long? We are just planning a daytrip from Cairns.
Thanks in advance for the info!
Yeah 3 hours sounds about right. I wanted to take the hike but we took the water taxi over and only had about 6 hours on the Island. If you are going to hike up to Mt. Kootaloo I suggest staying the night, that way you will have lots of time to take breaks, enjoy the scenery, take pictures and enjoy yourself! It’s not fun if you have to rush back to get the ferry. Camping is really cheap there and you can even stay overnight in a hotel if you want.
Watch out for those spiders in the bush though! There really big but a guy who lives on the Island said they are harmless. I’d love to see the pics from the top of the mountain because I never got to hike up
The island is a lot of fun though! When we were waiting for the water taxi My girfriend, her friend and I all wished we had stayed for a few days.