26 July: An easy drive today with Rube at the wheel for more practice. Stayed at a new camp just out of town – Trinity Plains. The site had been an agricultural training facility so there was still the citrus and mango orchard which the owners encouraged you to utilise. We now have lots of lime juice in the freezer! It was a nice quiet well organised place and saw hot air balloons a couple of mornings.

Took the car in for its service, it needed to have its rear brake pads replaced – wear blamed on Rubes driving!

Day trip down to Cairns to pick up a package (replacement part from Kedron) and did some shopping. Went to the Mareeba markets as well so are now well provisioned for the next leg of our journey.

22 July: A big day. Had originally planned to stay at a Musgrave again but decided to head further south. Finally hit continuous sealed roads again which made for more relaxed driving! Bustard Downs has had a mixed history- tobacco farm to mine camp and now a small organic fruit/veg and cattle farm. Camp was bursting when we arrived- a long weekend for Cairns and lots of locals. Emptied out the next night so very quiet. David spent hours transforming the car and caravan from red back to the original – a huge task and even with a large amount of soap and water and elbow grease areas of red still appear! Went for a few walks including one that was much longer than planned – didn’t get directions before heading off! Once got to the right place it was very pleasant and had a very late picnic lunch by the river.

 

 

 

 

 

 

20 July: Heading our way back down from the “Tip”. Had an overnight stop at the Bramwell Junction Roadhouse campground after a particularly bumpy trip. On the way we stopped off to visit the Fruitbat Falls – a very popular place to stop and have a swim as no crocodiles!

We then headed on down and across the Piccaninny Plains to a campsite alongside the Wenlock River – a lovely peaceful place away from the crowds. We set a pot in the river and managed to catch a couple of cherabin which proved to be very tasty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Had a drive out to see Chili Beach which is very popular- don’t know why as it was very windy, a bit smelly and no different from a lot of other beach area. Also had a side trip to Portland Roads where we had a great seafood lunch, and then a quick look at Lockhart River (was a big WW2 American Airbase).

16 July: A big day today! Shuddered and shook our way here, some short reprieves of good road and even seal. Crossed the Jardine River on a barge- $130 return for about a 30 second trip.

 

 

 

 

 

Nice peaceful campground by the beach, unfortunately there are crocodiles.

Drove and then walked to “The Tip”. – northern most point of Oz – took the photo and admired the view. Did a bit more sightseeing around the area including along a marked “road” that ended up being very much a 4WD drive track to look out to Possession Island, one of Captain Cooks landing places.

 

 

Also saw a couple of plane wrecks from WW2 days.

While we were busy taking photos of palm cookatoos the neighbours saw the resident eight foot croc cruise by out in the bay. We then set off to try our luck at fishing whilst keeping a sharp eye out for intruders. No crocs and one tiny fish the score. We told that we should have used the fish as live bait to catch bigger fish.

Dave whipped up a batch of delicious scones on the Weber BBQ – bread and damper on the list to try👍

15 July: We excelled ourselves today and travelled a couple of hours(or less) up the judders today to Bramwell which is Australia’s  northern most cattle station – runs about 5000. Station is set up well for tourists- quite an income earner- nightly entertainment provided.

Set up and then drove up the start of the  “iconic” Old Telegraph Track – a must do for a lot of Australians. First creek crossing quite challenging- three choices and only saw two vehicles cross the third and so called easiest one! Not at all suitable for towing the caravan so not an option for us.

IMG_1115IMG_1116

 

13 July:  Another short hop and luckily the road was not too bad today as it had been recently graded. Lots of room at Morton and nice grassy sites. After talking with the staff there and seeing some videos they had we decided to modify our itinerary. One of our planned stops involved a longish at least one metre deep creek crossing, thought it best not to wet our caravan electrics.

Danger did a bit of leak checking on the caravan and the outcome was one very clean floor and some silicone seal.

Went for an walk around the area- Wenlock River and Cave creek  and tried our luck at fishing – score zero and put out the yabbie pot – score zero, crocodile sighting-zero!

9 July: Arrived in Weipa after a short journey from Merluna. Still had some corragations but better than some days. Camp by the sea and nice beach, pity you can’t swim. Lucky for us there was a swimming pool which we used.

Day trip out to Old Mapoon where the Dutch first landed in 1606. Saw some of the huge mining trucks when we had to stop at a haul road- very impressive!

Looked at doing a fishing charter but nothing available for the next  two weeks. That will have to wait for another place.

 

7 July: Yet another day of bumps. If people are to be believed we have apparently been through the roughest patches now! Merluna a working cattle station (1000 head of fenced catttle) and lots of wild cattle, an airstrip, a swimming pool and nice shaded grassy sites. Chose to try the station dinner which was BBQ and desert which was delicious so did the same the following night (2 courses for $20). Second night was homemade corned beef and trifle, once again delicious.

6 July: Bumped our way to Coen! Some very rough patches of road with huge corragations. Had a look at a couple of camping options – decided against the “Sexchange Hotel” and opted for the Coen Guesthouse which had a nice area for camping in. A few more running repairs- the ensuite door has now been removed and is sitting outside when we are camped and also managed to get a one new Anderson plug which David successfully fitted. Got some good tips from from local workers.

5 July: Left our lovely peaceful site. Rube chickened out on driving as the caravan brakes were playing up! Some great scenery on the way, especially through the Nifold Plains – masses of termite mounds of all shapes and sizes. We bounced and juddered our way to Musgrave Roadhouse and checked in to the campsite. We were the only ones there so chose the only tree to camp under and spread ourselves out. At about four o’clock the masses started to arrive and soon there was no space left. Felt a bit guilty about our space but then first in first served!