Trekkin

Day 35 – Monday 23 August 2021 –57 km

A group of laughing kookaburras entertained us during breakfast this morning then we had various hens & ducks come up to us as we finished. We had a leisurely pack up, the park was deserted, with only four vans when we left, it is a very quiet & lovely place to stay. The drive back down to Mareeba & on to Atherton was slow as there are lots of roadworks with slow speed limits. There was a group of police checking speeds in one section. There are lots of mango plantations lining the road. We stop at Atherton dump point as we drive past on the way to Yungaburra.

At Yungaburra we are meeting with a large group of Kimberley Karavan owners and camping with them for five days. We arrive at the campsite around 11.30am and register and pay for our stay. There are a lot of Kimberley Karavans already here and a lot more arrive as we set up & have lunch. 

After lunch we explore and go for a walk along the Barron River, right next to the campground. The river bank is mown for more than a kilometre, we start with seeing a platypus within 30 seconds of arriving at the river bank. The walk is beautiful with the tropical rainforest on one side & the river on the other. Along the walk we saw five platypus swimming & feeding, we stood & watched them for ages.  The birdlife is also amazing, with all manners of small birds flitting around the forest & calling.

We stop & chat to some Karavan owners on the way back to our Karavan before afternoon tea.  At 5pm the Kimberley Karavan Owners Group (KKOG) gather at the firepit & sample some wine, cheese, bikkies & nibbles. There is lots of talking & introducing to other Karavan owners, they are all very friendly. The raffle has lots of vouchers from all manner of local businesses. We contributed with a generous donation to the KKOG. We wander back to our Karavan with the guiding light of the full moon. It is our 35^th wedding anniversary, what a great day.

Day 34 – Sunday 22 August 2021 –50 km

The sound of campers packing this morning & leaving as all the weekend campers start heading back home.  We go for a walk through Granite Gorge again this morning, from the other direction. It is just as beautiful & the wallabies just as cute & friendly.

The campground is nearly deserted as we have lunch, a few scattered camps remain amongst the trees, this is a really nice place to be. We head into Mareeba & out to the Golden Drop Winery a few kilometres north. We are the only visitors at the Winery & wonder if it is closed. The winery is open & we get an exclusive wine tasting of mango wine, all the different varieties from dry to sweet, sparkling, port & liquor. I don’t like mangoes, but was pleasantly surprised by the taste. We helped the economy & got a box full.

Next it was in to Mareeba & grocery shopping, the last shop was Darwin & that was a couple of weeks ago, so some supplies are running low. We are surprised how much ends up in our trolley & how much leaves our wallet. Back to camp, unpack the groceries & I go for a walk to the creek while Tereza starts preparing some food. Then cheese, bikkies & wine followed by another good meal. Another great day.

Day 33 – Saturday 21 August 2021 –260 km.

After a very windy night (Cook Town is a very windy little town) a slow start this morning, we chatted to some of our neighbours & got on the road around 9.40am. On the road south we stopped at the three lookouts that were on the left side of the road that we missed on the way to Cooktown. The first of these was the Black Mountain lookout on Trevethan Range. This jumble of large granite boulders is very interesting, the rock has not weathered like all the other mountains around, thus there is very little vegetation, a few fig trees poking out between the boulders here & there & that is it.

We continue on & our next stop is the Bywater Range with again an amazing view from the lookout at the top of the range. The view back towards Cooktown is beautiful.  There is also some explanation boards under a shelter shed that give a good story of the history of the region.

Our third lookout stop is part way down a range descent & the view looking south is extraordinary. The range nearby is also interesting with some bare rock faces that must be a torrent of water in the wet season. All the stops were a good opportunity to stretch our legs.

The Hungry Pug Café in Mareeba is our choice for lunch and the burger is the biggest I have ever seen & just as tasty. This is the first one I have not been able to wrap my mouth around. No dinner again tonight, I am so full.

Our destination today is Granite Gorge, west of Mareeba, thank goodness for satellite navigation. We book in & set up with a group of onlookers watching us open the van up, we chat to them as well. It is the weekend & the park is nearly full of families camping in tents. We go for a walk on the gorge track and my goodness, this gorge is stunning. The path is well marked & we climb up & down over huge granite boulders with water flowing through, over & under them. Each way we look the view is amazing. Part of the walk takes us to the swimming hole & there are a few people enjoying themselves in this beautiful pool. The next part of our walk takes us to an area that is swarming with small rock wallabies. They are so cute & small & come up to us looking for a handout. There are a few peacocks & peahens wandering around as well.

No dinner tonight, lunch was too much, we have a game of cards with some cheese & bikkies & a glass of red wine. Another great day.

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.

Day 31 – Thursday 19 August 2021 – km

This morning we took a leisurely walk up to the old Townsville Convent, now the Cooktown Museum. This is notable as it houses an anchor and cannon that were thrown overboard when Cook’s ship, the Endeavour, hit a reef.  The museum is very well laid out and provides a very good history of the Cooktown region, its settlement & growth. We ended up spending a few hours inside this amazing building.

It was lunchtime so we bought some buns from the bakery and some prawns down at the fisherman’s wharf and went down to the waterfront. We were sitting near Cook’s statue looking over the Endeavour River and the boats moored there, one had sunk & a few stranded on the sandbar at low tide.

Next was an adventure out to see Trevethan Falls, named after a forebear of one of our good friends in Canberra, Mike Trevethan. The nearby rock covered mountains are covered with Trevethan granite. The turn-off is a bit south of Cooktown & the dirt road is good for around 10km, before we turn off at a hand-painted sign & down a dirt road that gets worse. After the next turn the road gets worse again then becomes a rough track winding through the bush, with exposed tree roots & rocks & ruts & hollows. We stop as the track starts heading up hill & gets even worse again. As we walk the last 200 metres we are glad we stopped where we did. The track gets really bad & then the walking track up to the falls is very bad & rough. The Trevethan Falls are worth it though, stunning & dropping into a deep pool, surrounded only by nature. The walk out is just as bad & the road was no better.

Back at camp we decided to walk to the old cemetery along the old railway track to Laura. We passed where the old railway yards where & saw the ruins of the old yards plus the wreck of the old rail motor car. An elderly couple were working on keeping the old bits & pieces in some sort of order. The walk along the old railway track is very pleasant with mangroves on either side before we branch off across the mudflats then through the trees to the old cemetery. We look at some of the old headstones then walk the track down to the old Chinese shrine, separate to the other cemetery. There is a lone grave a little further on of a woman that died out to sea just off Cooktown. The walk back is just as pleasant & we are tired when we get back to our van.

Dinner is back down at the wharf at Cook’s Landing with a fisherman’s basket on the deck looking out at the river as the sun sets. A couple of very large grouper are swimming just below the deck as the tide rises. We enjoy the seafood and the sunset. Another great day to be thankful for.

Day 30 – Wednesday 18 August 2021 – 327km

We got away a bit after 9am & wound our way out of Malanda & through Atherton on the road towards Cooktown. North of Atherton there was a lot of roadworks so we travelled at 60km/hr or 80 km/hr for a long time. There are lots of banana & mango plantations and these get less as we get to Mareeba. The countryside changes from rainforest to dryland savanna again and we see lots of red dirt covered cars and caravans coming south. A lot of these have been on the road from Cape York. There is a lot of long straight road & we pass a large dam before we get into the mountains & spend a lot of time climbing & winding our way up & down again. We pass the turn-off to Cape York & the oncoming traffic lessens noticeably.

Cooktown is a small town on the Endeavour River and we drove slowly down the main street to the wharf area at the mouth of the sea, with lots of small boats at anchor in the river. We stopped & found a place to eat on the water “Cooks Landing” fish & chips, a small place with a small deck on the water looking out over the river. The seafood was so fresh & delicious, we only ordered one seafood basket & it was nearly more than both of us could eat. We drove back into town & stopped outside the Orchid Caravan Park, just on the edge of the main street. Luckily they had a spot for us so we booked in & set up. The park manager was very helpful & filled us in on all the things to see & do around Cooktown.

We started with a walk down the length of the main street, stopping at a few shops & enjoying the ambience. There are some very nice old buildings in Cooktown reflecting the wealth of the gold-rush days. Walking back I stopped into the local garage & bought some Ad-Blue to top up the tank in the car, it is used as an anti-pollution additive.  Next we drove to the lookout & lighthouse on the top of Grassy Hill, the spot that James Cook walked to after his ship, the Endeavour, was beached in the river for repairs more than 250 years ago. It was so windy on top of this hill, the views are amazing though. A couple up there for the sunset had their dinner blown off the table.

The drive to Finch Bay is not far and we are the only people on the beach, we can’t go near the water though, crocodile warning signs tell us of the dangers. It is a pretty spot to see though. Back to the van to plan & catch up with friends.  It is a real worry that all the states have closed their borders because the new Covid cases are increasing.  We are avoiding bigger cities, we spend most of our time in National Parks.  In Queensland they only have a few Covid cases so we are very lucky here, we can travel around.  The way things are at the moment we may be staying longer in Queensland than what we planned. Cheese, bikkies & wine for dinner only, still too full from lunch. Another great day.

Day 29 – Tuesday 17 August 2021 – 158km

We woke up 8.20am this morning, later than usual.  The warm doona was welcome during the night.  It is a cool morning.  We booked in for another night, outside the reception there is a beautifully coloured & very large Golden orb spider welcoming us. This caravan park has ducks, chooks, brush turkeys & goats running all over the place, they even have an alpaca & pony in an enclosure for kids & all to enjoy. After breakfast our first visit is to Malanda Falls, only about 400 meters from our van, and right next to the caravan park.  We walked through real rainforest then down some steps & we saw this amazing waterfall.  It looks like the town has made the waterhole under the falls into a swimming pool – very nice indeed.   This has wetted our appetite to see more so we went on a waterfall trail.

Our first stop is at Millaa Millaa Falls, a really beautiful high fall with a nice big swimming hole under it. We admire the falls with a few other tourists, the cars in the carpark are varied with not one Queensland number plate.  Next is only 8km down the road, the Zillie Falls. The walk in from the carpark is only short, but we only get a view of the top half of the falls as the track down to the base is very muddy and rough and not worth the trouble according to a couple that went down the track. Onward to Elinjaa Falls another 2km down the road and this has a paved track down with good steps and the falls are really worth the effort, a really beautiful display as it tumbles over the rocks.

Enthused by these falls we decide to explore further & drive down to Ravenshoe, the highest town in Queensland at 930 metres above sea level. It is lunch time by now we stop into the Popular Café for a burger & coffee. Once again another giant burger that you can’t wrap your mouth around. They certainly know how to make great real old fashioned burgers in the outback, it’s a shame that in the cities they mainly have McDonalds & Hungry Jacks. The directions to Big Millstream Falls are not very clear & it takes us a few wrong turns before we find it. This has a very good inclined pathway down to a viewing platform and the falls are well worth the effort, they are magnificent as well. They are reputedly the widest single drop falls in Australia. The climb back out is a little taxing, we stop a few times to catch our breath.

The road back to Malanda is beautiful in the sunshine, a lot different than yesterday driving through the cloud & rain. We stop at Millaa Millaa Lookout, the views are breathtaking, an absolute superb vista of the region and well worth the extra trouble.

As we come into Malanda we turn off to the Nerada Tea Plantation, Australia’s largest, and drive the 10km out through lush dairy farms. The plantation has more than 360 hectares of tea fields, producing around 6.6 million kilos of fresh tea leaves each year. We order tea & scones but are alerted to some tree kangaroos that have been spotted in a row of trees next to the teahouse. We have now seen our first tree kangaroos, around 10 metres up. They are called a Lumholtz tree kangaroo and are the size of a small wallaby. Amazingly they hop between branches feeding on the leaves of the trees. The tea and scones with jam & cream were very tasty & again full bellies. No dinner tonight. The gentle sound of the Malanda Falls lulls us to sleep. Another great day to be grateful to be alive.

Day 28 – Monday 16 August 2021 – 388km

We left Cobbold Gorge this morning after chatting to some camping neighbours and letting the tyre pressures down a bit more. It took us around 2 hours over the very corrugated road to travel the 48km back to Forsayth where we stopped in the shade next to the park and pumped the tyres back up to their correct pressures again. Lunch at the Goldfields Hotel across the road with lots of flies descending once our meal arrived. We read the history on the walls of the hotel, all very interesting.

The road condition to Georgetown was good with only around 10km of dirt before we refuelled and turned right towards the Atherton tablelands. The bitumen was a blessing after all the bad dirt, however the dual lane changed down to a single lane of poor bitumen then back to dual & back to single for the next  200km until we reached Mt Garnet. We stopped to stretch our legs, the local visitor centre was closed and we checked the distance to our planned destination, it was only 60km more to Malanda Falls Caravan Park. We phoned & they had a spot so we booked in and continued on our way. The scenery started to change, noticeably the termite mounds were bigger & baulbous, different than what we had seen previously.  Once we reached the Atherton Tablelands we climbed up onto the range, the temperature dropped to 15C and it started to rain.  We are driving in the clouds. Lush and all so very green grass & magnificent rainforest trees are a welcome change, the cold & rain is not.

We found Malanda Falls Caravan Park easily enough, booked in & set up. Jeannette, the park manager, recommended the Malanda Hotel (now The Big Pub) for dinner so we walked down the road & treated ourselves to another feast, so full of good food. We have been using very light covers for the last few weeks, but tonight we got our warm doona out. We think that we will stay here for another night as there are so many places to explore around here. Another great day.

Day 27 – Sunday 15 August 2021 – 48km

It was really windy during the night and still blowing hard as the sun rose. We packed and let the tyre pressures down. All the people we have spoken to have told us that the road into Cobbold Gorge is pretty rough & corrugated. They were right. The dirt road winds up and down through creek crossings, we do come across a road works team grading & rolling the road, we are thankful for that smooth section. There are lots of cattle grazing, some close to the road, some walking on the road we have to slow right down for. There are lots of vehicles and caravans coming the other way and we get overtaken by two caravans and a car, I am driving very slowly and it takes nearly two hours for us to complete the 48km in.

At last the gates of Cobbold Gorge welcome us & we check in to our van spot & set up. Next is a swim in the infinity edge pool looking out over the dam, very nice indeed. We have lunch at our van before heading down to start our Cobbold Gorge tour. There are more than 60 people lined up & we split into five groups & load onto three 4wd buses. The trip to the gorge is about 5km by dirt road & we cross a wide sandy river bed before reaching a really big shed where the buses are parked to provide some shade.

We start with a short talk on the history and then walk a short way to a floating pontoon with some narrow flat bottomed aluminium boats tied up. They have an electric motor on each end of them. Fourteen of us fit snugly on the boat and we need to do a bit of re-balancing to keep the weight distribution even. The electric motors are very quiet and we spot a couple of freshwater crocodiles sunning themselves before we enter the gorge proper. Stunning is the best word to describe it, nature at its best. The gorge is very narrow & gets narrower the further we progress up it. The rock is highly polished in places from the swirling water when the creek is in flood. In some sections there are bands of exposed rounded rocks from the sedimentary layers.  There are lots of small fish swimming, but no water birds inside the gorge.  The gorge twists and turns & each corner we turn seems more stunning than the last.  As we reach the top of the gorge we need to stop & wait for the previous boat to come back out. The 2 boats are very narrow but the gorge is even narrower. We touch rock in lots of places with the boat as we pass through some very narrow sections.  The trip back is just as spectacular and we enjoy every twist & turn.

After we disembark we start a bush walk and our guide explains some bush tucker food, the different plant & foods that can be eaten plus the different trees and names of them. The walk is very nice & our guide stops & tells the story of Corbett, a man that died not far from here with an aboriginal spear in him more than 150 years ago. His grave is not far away through the bush. We climb up onto the sandstone escarpment and marvel at the beauty that surround us. Our path takes us next to an amazing glass bridge over the gorge. (The only glass bottomed bridge that exists in Australia). We are all given covers to put over our shoes so that we don’t scratch the glass. The views along the gorge are stunning. Our path takes us back down a narrow split in the sandstone before we emerge from the bush not far from the big shed & the buses.

Dinner is at the onsite Bistro tonight, on the deck next to the pool. The food was excellent.  A beautiful star lit night, a romantic walk back to our Karavan.   Another great day to be very thankful for.

Day 26 – Saturday 14 August 2021 – 280km

An easy start today and an easy drive from Georgetown to Forsayth, a bit over 40km through rolling hills and around 8km of good dirt. We booked the last spot at the Forsayth van park before we left & when we arrived, we are put in the overflow spot across the road next to a shady tree.  We take a walk around town after we set the van up & had a look at the old Forsayth railway station and nearby park. The train runs once a week from Cairns carrying tourists and is called the Savannahlander, it runs on a 3 foot 6 inch gauge track. The track was laid during the days of the gold rush in this part of Queensland. It is interesting, there are so many old gold mining towns in this area that were once thriving and now most of them are gone, some the only evidence is a lonely cemetery in the bush. The current population of Forsayth is 54 people.

Next we take a drive to another old gold town, Einasleigh on the Copperfield River that is around 54km away, mostly bitumen, with about 8km of good dirt. This place is even smaller than Forsayth and we stop at the old two story pub for a steak sandwich, really tender meat. We chat to a few people at the pub then cross the road to the Copperfield Gorge. This is a small beautiful deep gorge cut out of the river & has a long pool of water the length of the gorge. There is no water flowing in the river so the waterfall at the beginning of the gorge is not flowing. There are a few volcanic plugs standing out nearby that punctuate the scenery and give the view a nice boost.

The drive back is just as beautiful with a few wandering cattle keeping me on my toes and we get back to Forsayth around 3.30pm, sit in the shade and have a rest looking out at the nearby hills.

Another caravan pulls up close to us, they got the last overflow spot it seems too. There are 6 caravans in here who must have all got the last overflow spot.  Everyone is very friendly, we chatted while having drinks about different travel experiences & then it was dinner making time.

I walked across the road with Tereza to the amenity block & it seems that there are a couple of peeping snakes who decide to look down from the rafter while one uses the showers or the toilets.  (A couple of pythons chasing frogs) Tereza is relieved that tonight they were only interested in the boys (must have been girl snakes). Quite a lot of Australia is closed down because of the Covid outbreaks.  We are hoping not to come across any infected area. Another great day.