Cairns: last big town before we start the journey to Cape York. Mainly a stop for the last preparations but some fun on the program as well as we were meeting with friends from Byron, Amanda and Colin who have now moved there. Many thanks to Amanda for giving us her room for 5 days while she slept on an uncomfortable couch. So between catching up, good dinner (Bayleaf, Balinese restaurant, ABSOLUTELY recommended if you go to Cairns), poker game and lounging by the pool we got ready for the real 4WD adventure.
1st stop of the Cape York peninsula: Cape Tribulation in the Daintree National Park; but not before popping into Daintree village for a pic of the Big Barramundi (this one actually requested by Pete for once;-)).
At Cape Trib we stayed in a lovely little caravan park, Lync Haven, right in the middle of the rainforest. The place is also home to rescued wild animals and we got to watch Boris, the 12 years old estuarine crocodile (only a teenager as they live until 80 years old!) get a feed of barramundi and to feed and pat very friendly kangaroos and wallabies. So cute. They also have a variety of birds in aviaries (parrot, gala, cockatoo…) some really sook for cuddles, some a bit bity… and a few snakes, quite impressive to watch them move albeit for the smallness of the cage. Pete also had a close encounter with a bandicoot one night, when the little creature walked straight up to him while he was sitting outside the tent one night. They apparently have very poor vision so he probably didn’t realize Pete was even there until he called me to come and have a look and the bandicoot ran away in no time.
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| hard life! |
The national park is absolutely gorgeous, driving along a narrow winding road and walking through the lush rain forest. The vegetation is extremely dense and the sheer diversity of plant species is amazing. Vines climbing on trees have become as large and hard as little tree trunks themselves and form an intricate complex of branches either going up or down and making it impossible to find the origin.
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Cape trib |
We were a little disappointed at not seeing more wildlife in the area but it is so dense, anything could be 10m away from you without seeing it. We were on the lookout for the most elusive animal, the cassowary, since there is signs everywhere warning to drive carefully as they sometime cross the roads.
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| We found a cassowary!!! |
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| alright the previous one was fake but we did see one on the road, here is the proof. Impossible to take a good pic though. |
To go to Cooktown we were happy to hear that the Bloomfield track had reopen to 4WD after the causeway over the bloomfild river was destroyed by cyclone Yassi, rendering it impossible to cross for a few month. There we got to do some real 4WDriving on really steep hills. Because of the weight of the camper trailer, it was a slow drive, in 1st or 2nd geer, with the 4WD in the low range. But we made it thanks to Pete mastery I must had. After such a track having a beer is well deserved and what better place to do that at the Lion’s den Hotel, famous pub open for over 100 years ago, at the time when mining was prominent in the region The walls are covered with pictures and scribbled names and the rooms filled with old parapharnelia of all sort. Very quaint.
Cooktown is a small town with a lot of historical buildings from the gold rush in the 1870's. also maritime history, and the main recreation here is fishing. The view from the lookout is stunning at sunset with views of the Great Dividing Range and the Barrier Reef.
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| Cooktown and Endeavour river |
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| Cooktown's old lighthouse |
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| contemplating life |
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| watching the sunset, how romantic! |
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| sunset on Cooktown |
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| Battle camp rd |
We did a day trip along the Battle Camp road to visit a few waterfalls. Pete also did some maintenance on the truck and Trailer as the next part of our journey will be mainly on corrugated roads.
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| Endeavour falls |
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| Isabella falls |
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| Looking for crocs |
(Pete): I found a fishing charter that takes you out on the reef so I jumped at the offer when Julie suggested I should go. We left at 6.30am on a 40ft boat with 7 people on board plus the Skipper and the Decky, those 2 guy's were typical Aussie crazies, the skipper would often just start laughing out loud after he mumbled something, it was a little weird at first but you sort of got used to it, anyway we got out to our main area to fish which was a 2 hour steam from Cooktown, we were about 40km out from land and only fishing in 20m - 30m of water, I landed a Spanish Mackrel, 7 good sized Coral Trout and a bunch of small Reef species that I threw back. I also had a couple nice fish bitten in half by sharks. The trip made me miss not having my boat but it was good to be finally out on the water again. Julie and I had a great meal of Coral Trout which was awesome.
Now we have decided to drive a lot for a few days to reach the northern tip of Australia as quick as possible and settle up there for a while.
