Mission Beach Activities

Mission Beach is one of those places that keeps coming up when you talk to people who've done the East Coast. Small, genuinely beautiful, and with a lineup of activities that punches well above its size. It sits between Cairns and Townsville, about 2 hours south of Cairns, and it's worth more than a drive-through.

The cassowaries are real, by the way. They wander around the town and the beach paths like they own the place (they kind of do). If you see one, don't approach it. They're 1.8 metres tall and have been known to seriously injure people. Just appreciate it from a distance and tell everyone about it later.

Skydiving at Mission Beach

This is one of the most unique skydives in Australia. You're jumping at 15,000 feet (higher than the Cairns skydive) and the landing zone is right on the beach, so you come down over the Coral Sea and land on the sand. The views on the way down cover the reef, the rainforest, and the islands offshore. It's genuinely hard to beat as a skydive location and a lot of people who've done multiple jumps rate it as their favourite.

White water rafting on the Tully River

The Tully River runs through a gorge in the rainforest about 40 minutes from Mission Beach and it's one of the best whitewater rafting experiences in Australia. Grade 3 to 4 rapids, a full day on the water, and enough excitement to make the debrief beer taste genuinely earned. The Tully is also Australia's wettest town on average, which means the river runs consistently year-round (the water level is reliably good regardless of when you visit).

The beach and the reef

Mission Beach itself is 14km of beach across four small communities. The water has stingers from November to May (wear a stinger suit if you're swimming in season) but the beach is stunning regardless. Dunk Island sits just 4km offshore and a water taxi will get you out there for a day of snorkelling, walking trails, and very little else, which is exactly the point.

Adding Mission Beach to your East Coast trip

Most people treat Mission Beach as a one or two night stop between Cairns and the Whitsundays. That's enough time to do the skydive and the rafting, maybe a day on Dunk Island. If you're building an East Coast package, it slots in easily and breaks up what can otherwise be a long stretch between the two bigger stops.

Browse our Mission Beach activities above, or check out the full Cairns region tours page for everything in Far North Queensland including Cairns activities and Great Barrier Reef tours.