Advertisement
Published: December 2nd 2011
Edit Blog Post
Cape
Trinity Bay our ship Well as they say better late than never and here we are on our way down to Tasmania and we are just writing about our Cape York Trip. On 2
nd September we were picked up from the Caravan Park where we were staying in Cairns by a couple of guys from OzTours (the tour company for our trip) and whom we found out later were the Owner and General Manager and they didn’t say a word and we would never have picked it. The trip started by us travelling on the supply ship “MV Trinity” up to Seisia which is the port for Bamaga up the top of Cape York. The supply ship drops off supplies on the way up at Lockhart River (an aboriginal community) and both Horn and Thursday Islands. There are containers, cars, trucks and all types of supplies which are unloaded and it was very interesting watching the offloading from the ship to the wharf and also some loading. On each of the Islands we took a tour which was very interesting as there is so much history with World War II on both islands. On Horn Island a major Allied airbase was constructed and this was
Unloading
Unloading a tanker on the Trinity Bab attacked several times by Japanese planes and there is a great museum which gives all details of all happenings.
Thursday Island’s airport is built on Horn Island as Thursday Island is very small so there is a ferry which transports people who travel by air to the other islands. Thursday Island is the administrative and commercial centre of the Torres Strait Islands and lies 39 km north of Cape York Peninsula and has an area of just 3.5 sq km and an estimated population of 3,500. During WWII it became the military headquarters for the Torres Strait and was a base for Australian and United States forces. It was a great experience on board the ship as there was great food, happy staff members and the cruise itself cruising up the ship channel with container ships going past was fantastic.
When we arrived in Siesia we were met by our driver and cook (they were partners) who were to take us on our 11day camping trip back to Cairns. There were 14 in our group (7 couples) and we all had to put up our own tents at each place we stayed which became
Tip
The TIP of Cape York quite easy after a couple of nights for the majority of us. One couple in particular had a hard time as they were in their late seventies so we gave them a hand most times and we were rewarded with a fantastic ice cream at an ice cream place in the Daintrees. The husband snored so loud that each day when we were erecting our tents we all tried to stay as well away as we could to enable us to get some sleep.
We stayed at Punsand Bay on our first night with our tents not far from the beach and thankfully no crocodiles joined us during the night. The next morning we ventured all the way to the tip of Australia which was very exciting as it is something we have both wished to do for a long time. You have to walk the last 400 metres starting from the beach and climbing over rocks, but it was great fun and the experience to the tip of Australia was fabulous. The next day we travelled down over the Jardine River to Twin Falls which is an oasis on the Old Telegraph Line and the falls
Jardine
Crossing the Jardine River are located on the Elliot River. We all had a great dip in the river and under the falls just after we set up camp and also the next morning before we left (that was our shower). We had a great night around the campfire with another group we had travelled part of the way with from Bamaga and they had a couple of guys who could pull jokes from anywhere so we all had a great laugh.
The next day was spent driving along part of the Old Telegraph Road negotiating river crossings and bush roads and arriving at the Moreton Telegraph Station on the Wenlock River to set up camp. Each night we had a campfire and during each day travels we would stop and collect fire wood along the way. After packing up the next morning we travelled south to Batavia Downs Station then west to the Gulf of Carpentaria through huge cattle runs and Aboriginal tribal lands to the bauxite mining town of Weipa. This was a proper camp ground where we could catch up on our washing and also go to the supermarket and liquor store to stock up on a few
Elliot
Elliot Falls just off the Overland Telegraph Track necessities. Wine casks were only allowed to be sold after 5pm and we couldn’t buy bottles as glass was not allowed on the trip because it would break into a million pieces going over all the corrugations, pot holes, etc.
Iron Range National Park was our next stop where we spent two nights at Chilli Beach Camp Ground, very windy but a great camping spot overlooking Restoration Island where Bligh first landed in 1792. We explored and learnt about the gold workings of the 1930’s and the area around the airfield at Iron Range where there were major military installations. We then travelled south to Lakefield National Park which is a massive wildlife haven, a little like Kakadu in the Northern Territory . Our second last day was spent travelling to Cooktown where we paused for photos of a past pioneer homestead called Old Laura Homestead. In Cooktown we visited the James Cook museum, Cook’s landing place and Grassy Hill Lookout. Cooktown was a lovely place with heaps of history and also very windy which one of the locals said it is like that most of the time.
Our last day of
Twin Falls
Twin Falls one of our swimming spots our trip was spent travelling down the Bloomfield Track going through the majestic expanse of the World Heritage Rainforest and where the rainforest descent to the edge of the Great Barrier Reef . We crossed the Daintree River by cable ferry where there are plenty of crocodiles, but unfortunately we didn’t see one on our whole trip which was disappointing in a way. We did see one snake, a green tree snake that fell out of a tree just next to us up the tip which was rather exciting for us as I just heard this plop and there was a green snake. We stopped at an ice cream shop where we all indulged in a delicious ice cream and then travelled back to Cairns where we were dropped off at the caravan park to rejoin our 5
th Wheeler. We stayed there for another 2 days to catch up on the washing and prepare for our trip back to Brisbane. Also it was beginning to get hot and humid so it was time to leave after spending the lovely warm winter months up in North Queensland.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.123s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 11; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0419s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb