Atherton Tablelands (written 29 August)

On Monday, we left Endeavour Falls heading for Tinaroo Falls in the Atherton Tablelands, arriving at the caravan park late in the afternoon – after the trusty GPS took us on the scenic route via two dead end roads!   One thing we discovered about the Atherton Tablelands was that to get anywhere, you follow the road signs – don’t try and follow a map or GPS!

We had a lovely three days at Tinaroo Falls.  On Tuesday, we headed off for Cairns to catch the Skytrain over the Atherton rainforest, and I think we drove down the windiest road in existence!  The scenery was quite spectacular, but we were all glad to reach the bottom of the mountain – or should I say mountains.

The Skytrain is a 6-person gondola, which took us from Smithfield just north of Cairns up to Kuranda over the tops of the trees in the rainforest and across the Barron River and Barron Falls.  The whole experience was just fantastic – spectacular picturesque views and amazing fauna.  The size of the trees alone was just awesome!

On Wednesday, we had a quiet morning at the park doing domestics and hired a boat for the afternoon to try and catch a barra or two in Lake Tinaroo. 

 Luckily, I’ve had many years of experience with John’s lack of fishing luck, so I’d organised dinner before we left – beef stew in the camp oven.

On Thursday, we explored the Atherton Tablelands – discovered a gorgeous little village called Yungaburra, which we spent a few hours exploring.  Unfortunately, this was where Ken decided to leave us and head home back to Brisbane.  We were all sorry to see him go, as he was a great companion on our adventure.
 

We then went to see the Curtain Fig Tree, which was an absolutely awesome sight.  

We had lunch at a local cheese and chocolate factory – the only way to improve it would be to make it a wine and cheese factory!
  

After lunch, we drove back to Atherton and visited the Crystal Caves, which was disappointing in that the caves were made of painted polystyrene, but the crystal collection was impressive.

Back to our campsite for what felt like our last supper, as Ann and Bob and John and I were heading off in different directions on Friday morning.

Captain Billy’s Landing to Cooktown (written 24 August)

On Wednesday morning we left Captain Billy’s Landing heading for Archer River Roadhouse where we stopped for the night.  Of all the places we stopped, this was the least pleasant – I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone heading that way.  I was awoken during the night by the camper shaking, and we were told the next morning that a number of cars had been rifled.  The shaking I’d felt was someone trying to help themselves to one of our fridges which was outside the camper – thankfully secured to the camper with a length of stainless steel wire.

   

On Thursday morning, we set off again heading for Musgrave Oldraph Station.  What a contrast to Archer River!  And it was so nice to be camping on green grass again!

On Friday morning we packed up camp in record time and were on the road again only 2 hours after we woke up!  We took the road through Lakefield National Park to Old Laura, where we stopped for a coffee so that Ann and Bob could have a look around, having missed it on the way north.  

We reached our caravan park at Endeavour Falls, just north of Cooktown, in the early afternoon.  Unfortunately, being 25kms north of Cooktown, there was no signal, so I won’t be able to update my blog till we reach Tinaroo Falls on Monday.

Ann and Bob spent Saturday exploring Cooktown, while Ken John and I tried, again unsuccessfully, to catch dinner!  We then spent Sunday looking for the coloured sand at Elim Beach, which were spectacular, but I’m not sure it was worth the drive, as we could only see them from a distance.

Loyalty Beach to Captain Billy’s Landing (written 21 August)

Sunday was a rest day – time to catch up on washing and re-charge our batteries before leaving early on Monday morning heading for Captain Billy’s Landing.

We had decided to stop at Fruitbat Falls on the way south, and we all agreed that it was worth the early start.  Fruitbat Falls is one of those “must see” destinations – it was absolutely beautiful! It has been kept that way because the Queensland government has invested funding into the area – day access only, with vehicle access only and a 300m boardwalk  from the carpark to the falls to ensure that the natural flora isn’t damaged.  Swimming in the swimming hole and under the falls was just magic!

We stayed at Fruitbat Falls for about an hour and left for Captain Billy’s Landnign around midday – just as the crowds were starting to arrive at the falls.

We were a little apprehensive about the road into Captain Billy’s as we had been told that the corrugations were worse than any we had experienced – which meant that they were pretty bad!  But we decided to drive in as far as we could till the corrugations got too bad, and, after an hour ( and 27kms) we were glad we did, as Captain Billy’s Landing was absolutely gorgeous!  Being an National Parks campsite, facilities were sparse - one compost toilet and a wooden shelter.  But, as a result, there were few other campers there.

Captain Billy’s Landing was named after an aborigine who, in 1880, led government geologist and explorer Robert Logan Jack, here.  The aborigine called himself Captain Billy.

We stayed at Captain Billy’s Landing for two nights, and spent the day relaxing – playing Bocce (Ken had thoughtfully brought his bocce set along!) – and exploring the caves at the base of the cliff face at low tide.  John also tried to catch dinner, but wasn’t successful  - no fresh fish for dinner that night!

Thursday Island (written 17 August)

On Saturday, we took the ferry to Thursday Island.  

We were all pleasantly surprised by this gorgeous island and settlement, having expected a native settlement along the lines of the small Pacific islands.  

Thursday Island is actually part of Queensland, having been settled in the late 1800s.  It was a main battlement fort for northern Australia, with the fort built in 1891, and became a main administrative centre for the Timor Islands in the mid 1900s.  It now houses both Commonwealth and Qld state government administrative offices for customs, immigration, agriculture, education health, building and transport.   It is the main centre for the Timor Islands for both education and health, with the only high school and hospital.

It was a wonderful, and enlightening day trip.

Weipa to The Tip (written 15 August)

Ann and Bob arrived safely on Tuesday, having left Rockhampton on Saturday, having driven around 2000ks in 3½ days.  Well it was so good to see them  that fishing just didn’t happen, but that's life, as they say.

We left Weipa the next morning, heading for Elliott Falls, which is about halfway along the Development Road, a trip of around 300k, but it took us about 5 hours, on about 500,000 corrugations! We stopped after two hours at Moreton Telegraph Station for lunch, just after crossing the Wenlock River.  The telegraph station was built in 1887 when the telegraph was being laid towards northern Queensland. 

After lunch we continued north, stopping at Bramwell Junction, which is also the location of the start pf the Old Telegraph Track (OTT).  Because of the damage to our trailer, and some of the stories we’d heard on our way about some of the crossings, we decided to stick to the Development Road (Bamaga Road).  

After another 2 hours of corrugations, which felt like ten, we came to the spot where the OTT and Bamaga Road meet again, and we turned onto the OTT heading for Elloitt Falls.  The track was slow going, but not long after we turned onto the OTT, we came to a river crossing which we all decided was not possible – in John’s words, “we didn’t have the water-tightness, Ken didn’t have the clearance and Bob didn’t have the balls”!  So, disappointed, we turned around and headed back to Bamaga Road. 

Around 17ks down the road, however, was a turn-off to Sam Creek.  After 8ks of rocking and rolling with a few corrugations on the way, we reached the OTT and turned south, to find Sam Creek just down the track.  Although there were already a number of  campers set up for the night (we didn’t reach there till around 5pm) we we lucky enough to find a separate campsite where we could all fit and set up camp for the night.  Once we’d set up camp, we went for a walk to find the creek and investigate the swimming hole, which was just gorgeous.  Ann and I had a swim to wash the dust off before we cooked our dinner on the campfire.  The next morning, after we had packed up, we all went back to the swimming hole for a swim before we headed off.  

The trip back to Bamaga Road was adventurous when the lead vehicle took a wrong turn and we ended up doing an extra 2-3ks, but it was a very long 2-3­ks!  But we made it, and after another hour of not so bad corrugations, we reached the Jardine River.  We arrived just after the office closed for lunch for an hour, so we had lunch while we waited.

After we crossed the river, we drove the 50ks to Loyalty Beach, our home for the next few days. 

This morning, we set off for the realisation of our dream – we made it to The Tip!  What a great feeling!

After we walked to the Tip and had the obligatory beer to celebrate making it, we then drove back to Bamaga to find the old WWII air wrecks.  There are two, that we could find – tho there’s meant to be three, but who knows where the third one is?  One, the DC3, was an ANA flight which left Brisbane at 8.30pm heading for New Guinea, but crashed at 5.15 the next morning, killing everyone on board.  The second was a Bristol Beaufort Mark VIII torpedo bomber.  No idea where it was heading, but possibly also heading for or returning from New Guinea. 

Coen to Weipa (written Monday 11 August)

Once again, the road from Coen to Weipa was uneventful, apart from the next half million corrugations – tho we decided that this stretch of road wasn’t as bad as the road from Laura to Coen.  But we did cross the Archer River – very picturesque – and John even agreed to stop so I could take some photos!

It was on this stretch of road that we came across our first road trains – boy!  Did they kick up the dust!  Thank heaven they were going the other way!  But we had to stop till the dust cleared so we could see where we were going.

We finally reached Weipa at around 1.30 – the last 25ks was great!  Still dirt, but because we’d entered the mining area, the road was graded and smooth.  As ­we­ entered Weipa, we came across the first, and I suspect the only, set of traffic lights since Cairns, at the a hauling road – just a reminder that you’re in a mining town – the hauling traffic gets right of way.

Weipa is a mining town, with the largest bauxite mine in the world.  We had hoped to take a tour of the mine, but both tours for Monday were booked out, as was Tuesday morning’s tour. So it was a good idea, but didn’t happen.

So we spent this morning doing the washing (how exciting!) and exploring Weipa – which took all of an hour, including a trip to the one and only shopping centre, and a fair bit of that time was standing in the queue at Woollies.  And this afternoon John and Ken are doing running repairs and checks on the cars and trailers – little things like repairing the battery clamp in the trailer and the cutlery drawer which had disintegrated on the corrugations.  But all nuts and bolts were still tight and everything was still “ship-shape”.

The guys plan to go fishing tonight – so we might be having fish for dinner tomorrow night – after Ann and Bob, who have made it to Coen today, arrive.  Can’t wait to see them again!

Laura to Coen

I've had trouble with both internet signal and uploading photos, so have written the blog each day, but uploading is not a simple process - and including photos even less simple!  So I'm going to upload pages about each stretch of the trip as and when I can, and will most likely upload photos when I get home and have wifi again.

This section relates to Saturday 9 August:

The road to Coen was mostly uneventful, if you discount the half million corrugations along the way!  Some sections of the road were pretty bad, but thankfully we didn’t have to do any repairs when we arrived at Coen.

It was pretty slow going, and took us 4 hours to do 260ks!  When we finally reached Coen around 1pm, all any of us wanted was a cold beer, so we stopped at the pub for a beer, as you do, and decided to have lunch there before heading to the Coen river, where there was, according to the Cape York Destination Guide (one of our bibles) a gorgeous free camping spot alongside the river, with a toilet block.  Well we found the Coen River and a couple of camping spots of dubious quality, with no real spot to put the campers, and, more importantly, no toilet block!

So we went back into Coen and asked at the pub where the campground in town was – according to the Destination Guide, the camping ground was behind the Homestead Guest House, which we couldn’t find!  But fortunately, the pub had a lovely campground behind it and cheap as chips - $5 per head plus $5 for power!   And there were fireplaces so we could have a campfire and I cooked my second ever meal in a camp oven. 

The pub also had a couple of “pub dogs” which were very territorial and didn’t like any other dogs in the campground, but one of them, a lovely kelpie, adopted us for the night - he even growled at the other “pub dog” when he tried to visit - and slept just outside the camper all night!  He stayed and watched us as we packed up in the morning, but, as soon as John unplugged the power and started rolling up the lead, he got up and trotted off, and we didn’t see him again!

Cooktown to Laura

We packed up and left Cooktown on Friday morning, heading for Laura, after stopping to do some souvenir shopping – important things like stubby holders (as if we need more!) and t-shirts.

We drove along Battlecamp Road, where we hit our first real dirt and corrugations. 

The name of the Battlecamp Road comes from the days when the route was used to reach the Palmer River Goldfields.  On one of these trips, on 5 November 1873, a group of about 130 European and Chinese miners and prospectors was attacked by about 500 Aboriginal warriors.  A bloody battle followed, with many lives lost, but most of the victims were Aboriginals, who hadn’t expected that the miners would be carrying rifles, which were far superior to their weapons. 

The road crossed a rainforest covered mountain range, with views for miles, but John wouldn’t stop for  photos – fortunately for him, there weren’t many spots to stop anyway!

We also crossed a few small creeks, thankfully not very deep, as the camper is no longer waterproof – or dustproof for that matter – since our little mishap earlier in the week. 

We stopped for lunch beside the Laura River, just near the Old Laura Homestead.  The homestead was built in the late 1800s as part of the Cooktown to Palmer River goldrush, and renovated and restored in the 1990s.  It is an interesting insight into life at that time; separate living quarters for the Aboriginal stockmen; a slaughterhouse with a meat safe and an enormous chopping block - I'd love to have one this size! - 

the wash-house with the remnants of the old windmill and water tank; the cookhouse and the homestead itself – a two storey building.  Just fascinating to see.

We arrived at Laura around 3.00 and booked into the campground behind the pub.  Basic but clean facilities – and every traveller stayed there!  Met and spoke a number of travellers, some who, like us, were on their way to the tip, and others who’d been there and were on their way south again.  Some were on their second or even third trip to the Cape!

The pub was a typical outback pub, which did meals, so we decided to eat there that night – a limited menu of different types of meat  - chops, sausages, schnitzel – all with the same gravy and mash and vegies!  Not overly fantastic, but overly priced!  But it did mean we didn’t have to cook!

The night sky that night was clear and full of stars – our Japanese students would have loved it! – with a gorgeous  full moon.  The only drawback of that night was the rooster that started crowing at 2.00 in the morning!!!

As a result, we were up early the next morning and on the road by 9.00 heading for Coen.

Cooktown and surrounds

Because we didn't do the Bloomfield Track yesterday, we came across the most gorgeous river on the way to Cooktown, so had to go back and take some snaps.  Its the Little Annan River and river had obviously carved its way through the granite for eons!

On our way back to Cooktown, we stopped at Black Mountain, which was a solid granite mountain which, when it was formed, had a some sort of lesions through the surface of teh rock, causing the outer layer to crack into large boulders, which were then covered in algae, turning the rock black.  The mountain therefore looks like a huge pile of black boulders:

And to finish the day, we backtracked to Bloomfield Falls at the northern end of the Bloomfield Track.  So worth the drive!

Tomorrow we hit the road again, heading for Laura, via the Battlecamp Road and Old Laura.  This part of the country is so full of history it's amazing!  Then we head for Coen and then Weipa, where we'll stop for a few days to wait for Ann and Bob, who have been in Rockhampton all this time waiting for their car to be repaired.  They plan to be on teh road tomorrow afternoon and head straight for Weipa - 1800ks from Rocky, so, all being well, we'll see them on Tuesday.  
This is the last time I'll have internet access for a while  about three weeks, so I'll update the blog when we get back to Cooktown in 3 weeks' time.

Cape Tribulation to Cooktown

We set off early Tuesday morning, heading for Cooktown via the Bloomfield track and an overnight stop at the Lion's Den Hotel and Campground, but not before going back to the beach for a few more shots:

And just before we left we realised we'd been camping alongside the most gorgeous gum tree:

We then headed for the first of our tough stretches of road - The Bloomfield Track:

We made it about 15ks, did a few creek crossings, and saw some gorgeous scenery,

before we hit a long steep climb, at the start of the Cowrie range, which, unfortunately, was our undoing.  We slowly got slower and slower till we came to a stop and couldn't go any further without risking burning out the clutch, so had to reverse back down the 500m or so to the bottom of the hill, turn around and take the long, inland route to Lion's Den.  This meant that, instead of doing 26ks, we did 260ks!  But we arrived at the Lion's Den around the same time as we'd originally planned coming the other way.

The Lion's Den is a classic Aussie pub which has become a must-see for anyone travelling the Bloomfield or even just visiting Cooktown.  The campground there was lush green, with a river and a swimming hole; but the weather turned horrible - strong winds and rain and quite cool - so swimming didn't make it onto the agenda!  We set up camp, had dinner and then did the obligatory trek to the pub for a nightcap ... or three!

The next morning it was still blowing a gale and bucketing down with rain, so we decided to pack up camp and head for Cooktown for breakfast, but not before I managed to get one last photo of the sunrise ... or just after sunrise:

Photos to Cairns

As promised, here's some pics from our trip to Cairns:

Just about to leave:

Breakdown near Rockhampton:

Campsite at Black River Stadium just north of Cairns:

A lovely spot on our way to Cairns called Cardwell:

Campsite at Lake Placid just outside Cairns:

Approaching Green Island:

Cairns to Cape Tribulation

This is where our adventure really started.  We left Cairns Monday morning, heading for Cape Tribulation.

The drive to Cape Tribulation is only 130ks, but it’s not a fast road – it took us over two hours, even though it is sealed all the way!  The road followed the coastline, going alternately alongside pristine beaches, through rainforest and past sugarcane fields when the road went inland.  After just over an hour we came to the Daintree River, and had a fifteen minute wait for the ferry.

After crossing the river, we set off again heading for our campsite at Noahs Beach Campground, which is 5ks south of Cape Tribulation village.  Unfortunately, not long after we left the ferry, we struck a bit of trouble, when the camper slid off the road and hit a tree stump, damaging the front corner of the van.  

Both John and I were understandable upset by this and so there was no stopping to take in the view and get some photos of the gorgeous scenery of the Daintree Rainforest or the coastline.

Luckily, however, when we got to Noah’s Beach and had set up camp, the boys set about doing some bush panel beating and were able to panel beat the corner of the camper back into shape so that I am now able to use the kitchen again.  I‘ll never again criticise John for bringing along tools like his grinder and electric drill on a camping trip - they were both used!!

Noah's Beach was a gorgeous NP campground right on the beach, so I managed to get my first photos of the sunrise ... well a little after sunrise, actually!

And our campsite was perfect for the two campers plus vehicles.

And we were off!

The big day finally arrived and we set off last Monday - 4 of us in 2 cars - on the first leg of our Big Adventure.  We met up with our friend Ken at Caboolture and so there were 5 of us in 3 cars.
Our first night was spent at Tiaro, just north of Gympie, where we managed to get the last three sites in the free camping area at Tiaro Memorial Park ... it was sooo cold! I think it was the coldest night camping I'd spent for a long time!  It wasn't a bad spot, but none of us slept very well that night because the park is just next to the highway. so we had the noise of semis on the highway all night long!
But we were all up and ready to go the next morning.  Next stop Rockhampton.  Unfortunately on our way there, Ann and Bob started having car troubles.  They were able to get to Rocky, and booked the car into the mechanic for first thing Wednesday morning.  But it was another sleepless night at Rocky, as the caravan park was right next to a  shunting yard.  Why shunting yards have to shunt 24 hours a day is beyond me!  But they did!
Next morning we left Ann and Bob at Rocky, in the hope that their car would be fixed and they'd be on the road by lunchtime and would be able to meet us at our next stop - Proserpine.
Unfortunately the news about the car wasn't good; parts needed to be ordered in, which could take at least two days, and then another two days' work to fit them, so Ann and Bob are stuck in Rocky while we kept heading north.  Hopefully they'll be able to catch up with us next weekend at Laura.
We spent Wednesday night at a place called Camp Kanga - a beautiful spot about 20ks north of Proserpine.  It's a Lions Club run site which looks like it caters for school groups, but there's also a number of powered sites for travelers.  Just near Lake Proserpine, it's a very popular spot for fishermen, and a number of them were gone before sunrise in the hope of catching a big one!  John was wishing we'd stayed as bit linger - and had the boat with us!  We also had a group of rock wallabies visit us for breakfast - I think they were used to being fed!
Our next night was spent at Black River, just north of Townsville.  We had planned to stay at a spot called Saunder's Beach, a free camping area also north of Townsville, but with only 15 sites, by the time we got there at 3.30, there wasn't a site to be had!  So we headed back to Black River, and I'm glad we did!  You couldn't get two more different campsites, but Black River was a lovely spot.  Wide open spaces, clean facilities, and an owner with a fetish for plastic flowers!
From Black River we headed north for Cairns, On the way, we stopped for lunch at a gorgeous, very picturesque little town called Cardwell.
We reached Cairns on Friday afternoon and set up camp for three days at Lake Placid, just outside Cairns.
We've had a lovely couple of days here, exploring Cairns and a day trip out to Green Island on the inner reef.
Tomorrow we pack up here and head to Cape Tribulation.

PS Having trouble loading photos, so will get come up on a separate post as soon as I can!