Day 32 – Friday 20 August 2021 –160 km

Today we did our washing first up then started with a drive out the road towards Laura & the Isabella Falls. The falls are not signposted & when we reached the dirt road we realised we had travelled just that little too far, that water crossing we had just gone over was the top of the falls. We turned around & stopped for a good walk around. There were a few other people admiring the falls as well. The water is so clear, the pool below the falls had a clear sandy bottom and someone was swimming in there, it looked a little cold.

Next we headed out to Elim Beach & through the town of Hope Vale, the supermarket & petrol station are both closed & there are bars on the windows & doors. It is a nice drive on good bitumen road with a few small causeways & small bridges. As we get close to the coast we start seeing a lot of exposed white sand in the rolling dunes. There is a few kilometres of dirt road that is being worked on before we get back onto bitumen. The last kilometre is a sandy track through the paperbark trees to the Elim Beach campsite. Here we catch up with Dave & Tracy, old friends from my home town & I worked with Dave for a lot of years. We had a good chat & a long walk on the beach now the tide is way out. The paperbark trees & gum trees are amazing, growing on the sand with extraordinary twisted root systems. The mangroves are also amazing with their network of roots that support the tree.

Back to Cooktown before it gets dark, we refuelled then headed to camp to unpeg our washing. We chatted to our new neighbours for a while then headed back into Cooks Landing for another seafood basket, it is that good, with coral trout, fresh scallops, prawns, squid & chips. Tonight there were four very large grouper keeping us all entertained in the water directly below us, they are seriously big fish. Another beautiful sunset over the water ended another great day.