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.