CREB Track (Cairns - Cooktown)

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After watching many youtube clips of people's cars being washed away and upturned on their journey up to Cape York along the Old Telegraph Track, Brad and I decided we couldn't think of any better way to spend our holiday. We knew this was the holiday we would test out Old Faithful. Old Faithful is a 1994 Toyota 4 Runner, equipped with enough modifications to keep ARB and Rhino Rack in business for the next ten years. Brad had recently purchased it and we were pretty sure we were prepared to go off road. Besides, we had done the Gibb River Road with a hire 4WD which had nothing in the way of recovery equipment, that is unless you call a beacon and hi vis stripes recovery gear.

After a frantic pack up, we set off to our first destination - Daintree Riverview campground. Our recent trip from Melbourne - Cairns had taught us an invaluable lesson as we had been unable to camp in all of the popular places. That lesson was, to never book time off in School Holidays where possible. It was only when we went to do our last bits of shopping this time that it became very apparent. We had once again booked our time off work to coincide with school holidays. We started to become worried that we wouldn't be able to stay at all of free camping places along the way to Cape York, but it was too late now. We were willing to take the chance.

We were planning to take the famous CREB 4WD track from Daintree - Bloomfield which would provide the first test for Old Faithful. That night we enjoyed a few cold beers by the river in perfect sunshine and some delicious fish and chips at the restaurant across the road, our last supper before heading into the wilderness. We slept well under the stars in our double swag and woke early to begin our drive.

Having no map that showed anything in great detail, and being too tight to buy a proper one we actually had no idea where the CREB track started. Instead of asking the locals, which would have been way too easy, we decided to drive down any road that headed North and hope for the best. We found the CREB with a shiny new 'OPEN' sign attached. We excitedly took a few photos and began our journey with a drive through the Daintree River. The track is very steep in places and very eroded at times but otherwise was a fun drive through small creeks and narrow paths. We camped over at Roaring Meg Falls, which was a lovely quiet campsite with one major draw card, something even better than the toilet. Croc free swimming!

We camped there the night, and had the entire 3 campsites to ourselves. Our only disturbance was a huge lizard that seemed to enjoy hanging around our swag. There is nothing better than waking up after an afternoon nap to see a little snake-like tongue darting around the door to your swag. Another comfortable night slept with the swag top open, amazing! The next day we completed the CREB track, which was still muddy in places even with no rain for the past 3-4 weeks and arrived at the Lion's Den Hotel at 10am. We had been told by many to enjoy a beer here and did so in celebration of Old Faithful's successful passage through her first 4WD track. With us at the wheel, anyway. It was here that we saw our first red-dirt covered car with "We made it to the tip" written in it. We couldn't wait to have the same written on Old Faithful.

We headed to Cooktown from here where we had lunch at the Marina, dreaming of the day we would have a boat and wondering what all of these people were up to. After driving around the town for half an hour, again not keen on asking anyone directions, we finally found the supermarket for a quick re-stock before heading off down the road marked "Lakefield National Park".

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