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Published: September 17th 2013
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CREB means "track from hell" in Swahili We drove the CREB backwards. No not in reverse but we drove it from North to South which is unusual because most people heading north to the Cape take the CREB from South to North.Leaving the Lions Den behind us with all the massively hung over dirt bike riders who spilled out if the pub last night .. We headed along the last bit of bitumen towards Wujal Wujal... On the way we diverted towards this lovely little hamlet called Weary Bay. I can imagine why you'd call it "weary" because it's a place where a tired person would rest and restore. A great place for a "free camp with a billion dollar view of Archer Point/Cooktown area to the north and Cape Trib area to the south. We would have passed this place on the way up
but missed the turn off easily.At Wujal Wujal we went looking for the place to get a permit to traverse the track especially through the aboriginal land and Roaring Meg Falls. We found an elder who said "you'll be right met (mate) " and that was it ... The permission was granted and away we went. I thought it would be far more administrative a process to get a permit.All the info we read about CREB indicated that even if there was a snifter of rain or it looked like it was going to rain in the future then DO NOT DO THE TRACK. Ok that was ignored. The location of the CREB is in the
hills of the Daintree River catchment behind Cape Tribulation. Its 56 k's long. It is used by the electricity linesman to maintain and repair the electricity poles through the hills and until recently it has been closed for repair for over a year. I couldn't see anything that looked repaired. The terrain looks vertical and the vegetation looks impenetrable. Scene set ... Ok here we go.The first five or six kilometers ol' crebby try to trick you, apart from a couple of steepish hills it's smooth driving. I was thinking " not much challenge here". We were amazed that people chose to live in such a remote place. The road was easy. We turned into the road to Roaring Meg Falls. Wayne went and had a look and I stayed at the camp grounds. He went for a sneaky look but decided to respect the aboriginal custom which was that no man could visit the falls it was a place for women only. Bugger and no photography allowed either. The waterholes were
emerald green and crystal clear. Then it was climbing on the roughest track for ever. A constant bump, grind, groaning, creaking. suspension bottoming out of 50 kilometers.. My bum hurt, my knuckles white form holding on. There were some parts of the track where you couldn't quite see where the road was going. That was interesting. Wayne nudged b2 over these sections of track hoping to see where the track went when B2 fell over them. The surrounding hills in the Daintree were cloud covered that was worrying. The track was slippery and narrow in parts no room to get off if a car came from the other direction.... and most cars came from the other direction usually. There was one slippery steep hill climb I shut my eyes for..... I never do that... Now you know Wayne ..? but we got there phew !!!! There was a chicken track for that one.<br style="color: font-family: 'lucida grande',
tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; line-height: 18.88888931274414px;" />I tried thinking about how the dude back at the Lions Den got his camper trailer and boat over this kokoda. Not possible. The decent was even hairier cause you could see the mountainside drop vertically off the tracks edge not one metre away in places beside you. No guard rail here to protect you. That drop was the catchment of the Daintree which hopefully we could cross soon and finish this 4wd treat (not). The descent took forever slowly picking our way down down down round one blind corner after another. I had to get out to check clearance height with a fallen tree.... Just enough to get rooftop tent safely through.At some point we went off the track on the navigator screen. Oh hell, but that didn't make sense because where the navigator said
there was a road to drive on, to me there would only be oblivion to be experienced. Finally the pastures of a cattle farm came into view and I thought yay we did it. I started to breathe oxygen again woohoo. But then I forgot..... there was always the matter of crossing the Daintree River. It took a while to find the river. I was hoping for a bridge... No bridge. Found crossing, Wayne walked it while I scanned for crocs and then he picked a path and we were finally across. Oh my god... Guess who we found when we finally made it into the Daintree township, the Germans ...we waved our final goodbyes, again.
They were on the croc tour in the river so we drew messages in the dirt on their car and took off back to see Brian and Vicki at Trinity Beach.
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