Advertisement
Published: October 13th 2008
Our day trip to Thursday Island was another trip highlight. We were lucky to strike a calm day, as it had been pretty windy other days and the strait is well known for being a bit choppy. It takes about an hour to cross to the island and we were entertained along the way with a video about Torres Strait and one of the crew even came around with a map and a personal description of the area! A 90 minute bus tour of the island is included in the ferry ticket and this provides a good look around as the island is only about 3 square km. It is the main island of the more than 100 islands in the group, but is one of the smallest in size! The islands are part of Queensland and stretch north almost to Papua New Guinea. From the Green Hill Fort lookout, it’s amazing looking out over the islands as the colour of the sea is such a intense shade of blue. We had good company for the day, Lenny and Helen from Tassie who we knew from Punsand Bay. Lenny helped Blu to rotate our car tyres around while we were there.
We all tried crocodile for lunch at the Federal Hotel - tastes like chicken. On the boat trip back we thoroughly enjoyed watching a group of Bamaga primary school students (who had been over to TI for a sports day) having fun. The breeze was up and we were on the top deck - there were gales of laughter and lots of fun as the kids got soaked every few minutes with salt spray. We had a bit of a cultural knowledge exchange when one of the boys asked “do you have black people in New Zealand like us?”
Time to head down the peninsula the next day, and we took the quicker route back via the bypass roads, which were gravel but well graded. About 80k down the road we discovered our fuel gauge for our main tank was showing empty despite having filled up that morning. We thought we must be leaking fuel (later we found out it was a fault with the gauge), so after a bit of a panic at being such a long way from nowhere, we decided our sub-tank was OK so continued on down, filling it up at every roadhouse on the
way. A bit of a blow as we were trying to avoid buying fuel from the places we knew were expensive - like $2.38 a litre at Bramwell compared to $1.82 at Weipa. Next, about 14 k out of Archer River we had a flat tyre - it was a very hot day and we nearly melted in the process of changing it, and Blu was covered in dust from lying on the road. We limped into the Archer River Roadhouse which also doubles as a campground - and treated ourselves to an Archer Burger for tea, which had everything but the kitchen sink in it - yum! Luckily we got the tyre fixed at Archer, and we also carry 2 spares, cos the next morning, guess what - another flat tyre! On the plus side, Blu is getting very good at changing tyres!
Next stop was Lakefield National Park - there were lagoons with waterlilies and we saw some birds we hadn’t come across before, including double-barred finches that Blu was pretty excited about, and a Jabiru. Camped the night at Kalpowar Crossing, which was a good spot with lots of wildlife. In fact, a bit too much
looking across to Friday Island
from Thursday (there's a Wednesday and Tuesday Island too)for my liking! I ended up sleeping in the car after hearing far too many bumps in the night - still not sure what was out there, but during the day we had seen cattle, wild pigs, lots of small wallabies, cane toads, frogs and a tree snake in the men’s toilets! There was a “Warning - RECENT crocodile sighting here” sign at the causeway not far from the camp - these signs we find a bit more alarming than the routine yellow and red ones you see everywhere in FNQ - “Warning - crocodiles inhabit these waters ….” Well a few days ago a man was taken by a large saltwater croc in Cooktown, and I read that the last fatal attack in Queensland was at Lakefield National Park!! Glad I didn’t know that when I was there! Actually since the Cooktown one, there has been a lot of debate on the radio about whether crocs should be culled … but I am getting off the track…. didn’t see any in the river that day.
We estimate we did over 2000 ks of gravel roads on our Cape York trip so it was nice to reach the bitumen
road again the next day on our run into Cooktown. This is a really delightful town on the tropical coast, set on the Endeavour River which is apparently full of crocs but very scenic nevertheless. We treated ourselves to two nights at the Youth Hostel here, which had a tropical garden and a very nice swimming pool. We were glad of the pool as it was over 30 degrees and quite humid.
Scott who owns the YHA describes Cooktown like this - “Do you know the TV programme 60 Minutes? Well, the locals take 90 minutes to watch it” A pretty good description of the town, which is also very historical. This is where Lieutenant Cook landed in 1770 and spent time here repairing the Endeavour after it was damaged off Cape Tribulation. The main street has a very historical feel, with its rather grand old colonial buildings and there seems to be plaques and statues everywhere, including a grand statue of Cook himself on the foreshore. The excellent James Cook museum has a large section devoted to the great explorer and is housed in the gracious former St Mary’s convent. We also enjoyed the tropical Botanic Gardens which
were home to some colourful birds and butterflies and grazing kangaroos!
We took the Bloomfield Track down to Cape Tribulation, quite steep in parts but very manageable. Cape Trib is in the midst of thick tropical rainforest, and of course it rained! We stayed at the Crocodylus YHA in a mesh-walled safari hut which was also literally in the tropical rainforest and very cool. Had an ensuite (!) and didn’t even have to cook, as they did home-style meals for $15 each.
Called into the Daintree Icecream Company to sample their tropical icecream, which included black sapote and wattle seed flavours - yum. At the Daintree River we took a boat trip with the Solar Whisper - this was an excellent trip and we saw quite a few crocodiles, small and large, tree snakes and some colourful birds. Old “Scarface” was the best and biggest of the crocs, and we watched him from the safety of the boat as he swam around his territory. There was a large python sitting in the rafters of the ladies toilets at the cafe where we stopped for lunch - they are not venomous but look pretty scary up close! (see photo!)
Headed back up the Rex Highway to Mt Carbine, picking up some fresh barramundi from the farm on the way up (delicious). It was nice to get home to the caravan again after 16 days camping (well we did cheat on the last 3!) and we caught up with the 2CDs again back at base as they were next door to us at Mt C! And it was nice to spend “happy hour” with our old neighbour Lloyd, who for some reason we had been calling Les by mistake since we arrived at Mt C! We loved our Cape York experience and we were so glad that we decided to go for it after all!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.329s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 12; qc: 74; dbt: 0.1086s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Maddison Reys
non-member comment
I actually can't believe that's me! I look soooo young.