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: