South to Sydney: Down the East Coast

South to Sydney: Down the East Coast

Arriving in Cairns was a smack in the face. People - lots of them, cars – as in not 4x4s, various Europeans – noisy, shops – keep me out and rain – the cold sort.

Perhaps we picked the wrong place to stay, but after having to get up at midnight to shout at some Dutch backpackers next door to us and after the tenth time a smile or hello was ignored we couldn't wait to get ourselves back into some remote place with not many people around (and those that are are on the whole friendly).

We did get out to see the football (Germany vs Turkey), had a kebab and had our mysterious knocking in the car looked at. Apparently a popping floor panel. Unfortunately though the garage had the car for 3 days so we didn't get about as much as we would have liked. A day trip out to the Great Barrier Reef was good – we got a dive in – but with the weather not being its best it wasn't the amazing 'must do experience' we'd perhaps hoped for. It did get us reading up about diving in the area though and we started to look into a a wreck dive off Townsville.

The Rural Theme of North Queensland

We both wanted to see a cassowary in the wild. But preferably not one jumping us from behind or trying to disembowel us with their crazy big and extremely lethal talons (They have been known to cause fatalities). On a recommendation we spent our first night south of Cairns in Etty Bay. A great local's spot, with nothing but beach, caravans and cassowaries. One of the imposing creatures dutifully appeared the next morning and we took a few snaps whilst keeping a suitably large talon free distance.

Sunset from outside the tent, Etty Bay

We then sat ourselves down by the tent, beach view and tucked into our bowls of muesli and mugs of tea. I was teling Simon some fascinating story about something which he was paying his usual amount of attention to, when into my line of sight, about 2 foot behind Simon an unexpected visitor appeared. Given I'd stopped mid-sentence I'd finally got Si's attention and he turned following my eye gaze. The look of fear on his face!! (And he laughed at me for being afraid of the crocodile!) Si in his own words was in a slight quandry about what the correct course of action should be when one's muesli is interrupted by a strutting cassowary picking at rainforest plums on the ground behind your back. Fortunately I was ready to dive into the tent to find the camera and managed to catch Mr Cassowary parading away from us, obviously rather less interested in us than we were in him.

Following Etty Bay we headed to Jourama Falls in the Paluma National Park. A great national park campsite, good little walk with some improvised off-piste boulder scrambling by us just to liven things up and cold showers! Fortunately the weather had cheered up and it was a good 25 or 26 degrees again by this point. A National Park we would have liked to spend a bit more time around but we were feeling the pressure of there being so many things on the east coast we wanted to see.

From Jourama Falls we continued south. The sugar cane fields which had started immediately south of the Daintree rainforest continued to line the roads which were criss-crossed with the sugar cane train tracks. The sugar cane goes as far south as Bundaberg and with the highlands as a backdrop they are pretty spectacular.

Bowen Pier

One of the many Sugar Cane trains pottering about

We made a brief lunch stop in Townsville and treated ourselves to fish and chips in the sunshine by the beach. Our destination was Alva Beach. A little south of Townsville it was going to be our jumping off spot for the Yongala wreck dive.

Magnetic Island - Seen form Townsville Town beach

The camping ground in Alva Beach was great in itself. Once again a local's special, with couples staying there for 3 / 4 months and it being the 8th year they'd done it. But the camping wasn't the the reason for the stop.

Yongala Dive (we'd recommend them as a dive company) were taking Simon and I and 8 other like minded souls to dive the wreck of the SS Yogala.

Sunk in 1912 with the loss of all 123 people on board it has become one of the world's top dive sites. The wreck is the only thing on the sea bed for miles around and so it has become a bit of an attraction to the now local fish population. It has formed its own reef with masses of wonderful coral and schools of HUGE fish inhabiting the surrounding waters. Not only fish but turtles – perhaps the biggest turtles I've seen were dozily sheltering on the wreck - sharks are known to frequent the area (although none appeared on our dive), marble rays at least 3 meters across were gliding through the water and a little later in the year they get the whales on their migration passing by. Fabulous dive.

Above - Scenes from the Yongala

Eungealla National Park, somewhere I really wanted to stop into. After slowly ticking our way through the checklist of Australia's weird and wonderful creatures, a platypus was still outstanding. Apparently this was a top spot to view them so off we went. Little did I realise that heading a few hundred metres into the hills (which are still covered in rainforest I might add) would lead us to a freezing night where we improvised lighting a fire in the tent by carrying in a dish full of hot embers, wondered whether hot embers would kill us through carbon monoxide poisoning, put the hot embers back outside and brought in hot stones from the fire instead which crumbled apart in the bed. It was flippin' freezing though! And to justify it all we woke up to a white field – covered in frost – something we haven't see since leaving the UK.

Above - Scenes from the Eungella

Again another wonderful national park, great camping and we saw a platypus. From a distance. But that was good enough for me.

You might need to maximise this picture to see it but there is a platupus there, honest

So after 2 nights freezing our proverbials off we agreed it about time we started out east coast sunshine holiday. Land of endless beaches, surfing dudes, hot sun and glorious winter weather. Well the winter weather was about right.

Si was itching to get back on his surf board and Agnes Water being the most northerly surf beach had to be a good place to stop. It was a heck of a drive south though with little to see on the way so we over-nighted at a roadhouse campground (still freezing) before rocking up in Agnes Water the next morning. Small village, not too hectic and surely hot and sunny we were still so far north. No chance. The heavens opened as we were arriving and after 4.5 months of never putting the tent up in the rain we discovered that it's not much fun.

The Surf at Agnes Point, some nice easy longboard waves were just what was needed

We spent 3 nights in the end – Si got some surfing in, the weather cleared up enough for us to get a walk or two in but I felt entirely miserable being cooped up in the tent. I admit it, after all, I am a fair weather camper.

Agnes Water and the Town of 1770 as its called were definitely good spots though and in good weather would be even better. I would head back there like a shot for a holiday.

Above, fishing and walking in the national park outside 1770

By this point we were counting the days we had left and trying to work out priorities of things left to do. Fraser Island was the big thing. After a night in Hervey Bay (beautiful beach, nice town, too early for the Whales) we took the morning barge across the bay to Fraser Island.

The largest sand island in the world and a world heritage site, Fraser is one of the highlights of the trip. We'd been a bit worried about it being full of tourists and families with it being school holidays, but it's such a big place that we didn't really see that many other folks. It's strictly four wheel drive only with narrow sandy and winding inland roads on which you rarely top 30km/h and the east coast is one long 'beach highway', easily traversed at 80km/h at low tide but a bit trickier later in the day when the soft sand and tracked out beach don't do much for your fuel economy.

Above - Scenes from Fraser, above right - I am actually fishing here not "using the facilities" as it might look like

We took 5 nights there in the end and stayed on the eastern beach tucked away on a small plateau behind the sand dunes. We had a stunning view of the beach and ocean and it was probably our top located campsite for the whole trip. It's basic camping, no facilities, but we got a hot shower at the national park campsite on one day and had a cold dip in Lake Wabby another day. The inland lakes are one of the highlights of the island, beautifully clear, fresh water – known as perched lakes, along with the crystal clear creeks – so clear you almost can't see the water in them, and the ancient rainforest. We also headed upto the northernmost tip. Which due to a couple of tricky bypasses and it being only possible in the couple of hours around low tide, is much less well traversed than the rest of the island.

The "Mahena" wreck and..wait for it..a group of backpackers with their troopy stuck, you don't see that very often!

We proved how tricky the bypasses could be by taking 3 goes to get up one of the ascents on our way back south. It had been fine coming the other way :) But our now legendary skills in the Patrol meant there was no panic at potentially being trapped by the rising tide which would have given the car a very unwelcome salty bath.

The inland tracks and how to make our car look small

Back to the mainland and we continued our beach trip – staying at another national park site – Freshwater in the Great Sandy - and took the beach all the way south to Noosa.

Noosa was a bit like coming home (it's a lot like Manly, although a bit more upmarket) and we took the chance to holiday. We set up camp on the river, surrounded by Pelicans, facing west for glorious sunsets and spent a week lazing in the sun, splashing in the sea (which was a bit cold), making new friends in the camp kitchen, fishing at sunset, beer in hand and wishing away the nasty weather due to arrive on the Monday. We only had 5 or 6 days before we were due back to Sydney. We'd deliberately stayed north in the warmer weather as long as we could. But with the rain and cold heading in we packed up and started the 1100km journey south the Sydney.

Surfing with the dog (Max the photo's). We love Australia.

We didn't get too far though as first stop was the mighty Australia Zoo. Steve Irwin's home and a a great day out. Maybe some of the impact lost on us because we'd seen so much whilst on the road but we did get to see (and play with) wombats!

Wombats - like a giant marsupial guinea pig!

The one creature we hadn't seen at all whilst in Australia so we signed up for a 'close encounter' and got to find out all about the 3 different species of wombat and see them be fed. Apparently the most intelligent of the marsupials, it's about as clever as a dog (they all knew their names), but without the same sense of subservience. So when our wombats started being naughty (one of the old girls had got into a grump) we had to get out of the way and leave their keeper to fend off the 40kg of hairy lump.

We stopped over in a roadside rest area and set off quite early for Brisbane the next morning.

We spent a few hours looking around, sitting on the artificial city centre beach, checking out the museum and thinking that if the sunny winter day we had there was typical of a Brisbane winter day we'd be very happy to call it home. We carried on south and took in the gold coast. Quite a shock to see Australia so built up, with some serious high rises going on.

That night we found a really pleasant campsite – with a heated pool! - on the Tallebudgera Creek. We've been getting used to the number of people around again and comparatively when it's busy here it would still be a quiet day in the UK. Everything's relative. But this campsite was very quiet and we made the most of having the whole camp kitchen to ourselves.

Byron Bay in the rain

Our last two nights heading south were spent living it up in motel rooms! The weather had really closed in and although we would have love to spend the last coupel of nights camped by the beach on the east coast having a wet tent and gear was really not something we wanted to contend with at this stage.

A last word from Si:

So we're back in Sydney where we started, the cars been sold, our tax returns done to give us a bit of much needed cash and a last weekend ahead before the flight back to Blighty. This blog's more for us to look back and remember than anything but thanks to anyone who's read it - hopefully it's given you a bit of an insight into our trip.

We might get round to doing a best of section if we can find the time in our now busy schedule but in the meantime just two pieces of advice for travelling Oz. Do it by 4x4 and get away from the East Coast, thats all you need to know.

We guess there won't be an entry for a while now but this is definitely "paused" as opposed to finished and we look forward to the time when we pick it up again.

Cape York Adventures

Stop 61 Kalpower Camp Ground, Lakefield National Park

Our first stop on the cape was a large national park well known for crocs and fishing, consisting of rainforest, eucalypt forest and wetlands.

Driving into Lakefield

The campsites in true ozzie fashion are run on an honesty system, you just drop a few bucks in an envelope at a collection point and let the ranger know which site you'll be staying at.

Unfortunately my fishing didn't last very long as suffering a lapse of concentration on my second cast I managed to throw my (one and only) lure into a tree sticking up about three metres into the river. I could see it but didn't quite have the guts to go and get it as yes, I'm scared of the big bad crocodile.

Women Drivers - look what they get themselves into!

We stayed at Kalpower with running water (pumped from the river) and even has the luxury of cold showers (just remember to get in before six or so when the temperature starts to drop). It's a cool spot and we took the rare opportunity to spend the entire day chilling, reading books and walking by the river. During the night we had our first evening tent invasion as I woke at some point to the cold clammy feeling of a tree frog hopping up my chest, nice.

Walking down by the river we were surprised to come by an “Operation Raleigh” 1986 headstone by a set of stairs – they'd obviously been here over twenty years ago putting these steps in, sure these guys had a different experience to what we'd had, it was tough " beasting" type stuff back then.

Stop 62 Coen

On with the journey north and we passed Musgrave Roadside – site of one of the old telegraph stations that has given part of our route further north its name. The roads were on the whole wide, straight and recently graded gravel and we decided to call it a day at Coen. One of the most isloated places on the tip since they rely on road transportation for all their food and fuel which means when the wet season hits they can be truly cut off. They get a drop of diesel at the beginning of the wet to last them through and a food run every fortnight so long as the government road department allows the truck to travel.

Bush hitch hiker

Coen's a small mixed community and we didn't quite have the courage to pop into the local – amusingly renamed from the Exchange to the Sexchange hotel by a local comedian. We did however manage to catch the local tourist spectacle at dusk when millions of huge fruit bats start appearing on the horizon and loop round and round in the skies above Coen, literally darkening the sky. (Pretty cool, unless you don't like bats).

Stop 63 Chili Beach, Iron Range National Park

Following day we headed into the Iron Ranges National Park with the intention of camping at Chilli Beach. The road in was a bit rougher but no real dramas, it did however meander through some spectacular Borneo like rainforest and is worth driving just for the scenary.

Chilli Beach - including the random thong tree we contributed to. Oz myth - you only ever find left thongs washed up on beaches, it's true, once we'd heard it we only ever found the left foot washed up, crazy.

We camped up under the palm trees fringing the beach, surprisingly sheltered from the trade winds roaring off the sea. We stayed for a couple of nights and met some crazy people including the botanist in charge of vegetation management for the Cape who had good stories from when he lived up here in a hippy commune and some axe wielding nutter ex-UK guy, honestly you meet some funny folk out here.

Camped up at Chilli Beach

Whilst others were partaking neither me nor Charl were that interested in the local oysters that could be easily prised off the rocks at low tide. They'd charge a fortune for those things in Sydney though.

Stop 64 Moreton Telegraph Station
Exiting Chili Beach we thought we'd take a short cut to the north known as the Frenchman's Track. Unfortunately we had to turn around after 10km after bottling the crossing of the Pascoe River. The combination of waist high water, huge rocks on the river bed and a steep slippy far bank did it, I really didn't fancy having to winch the car 30m up the far bank if it all went wrong.

Rough going on the frenchmans track

So, we backtracked on the same road and turned north on the main road until we hit Moreton Old Telegraph Station.

(Most people head up this way to follow the old telegraph track. A service road for the telegraph line – built in the 1880's, transmitting morse code from Brisbane through the Cape and up the Thursday Island. It was the only means of communication for guys living in the far north. Although the main roads have been improved and bypass tracks built there is still a section of the old service road left that is one of the most well known (and challenging) 4wd tracks in Australia.)

Brett & Kathy @ Moreton

Moreton offered a pleasant camping ground with lots of bird life and fishing available on the river. At great surprise to ourselves the totally unexpected happened here. After having a chat to the site managers – Brett and Kathy – they asked if we would like to stay for a few days to help them out with several tour groups they had coming through. We stayed for six days in the end and in the main helped with the preparations for a group of 35 cyclists who for some bizarre reason were choosing to cycle all the way to the tip. Brett and Kathy are 2 of the coolest people we've met on the trip and if you're reading this guys – thank you for having us we had a great stay.

Got to drive the quad around, great fun.

Having six days in one spot meant we could keep our eyes open a bit more for the wildlife which included the Great Palm Cockatoo. Endemnic to the cape and a symbol of the region this is the world's largest parrot and we were lucky to get to see one so close up.

Can't get the scale so much from this photo but he's a big fella

Stop 65 The OTL to Dalhunty River Crossing

After 6 days nights at Moreton our shrinking time left in Oz meant we had to bid Kathy and Brett a sad farewell and continue our mission to the top. We knew we'd helped them through a tough time and we'd got to meet some really cool people and see some cool stuff so we were glad we'd taken the opportunity to stay for a bit longer.

It was time to take on the Old Telegraph Line (OTL), the historic old telegraph route that also happens to be one of Oz's best known and challenging 4x4 routes, crossing 12 creeks on the way to the tip. It's split into South and North Sections, both of which have a longer but much quicker and better maintained bypass roads. Plan of action was to take on the southern section on the way up and the northern section on the way back.

Creek no 1, Palm Creek. Just to gently ease you into it, a sixty degree drop into a bog hole.

We don't want to bore people with an inch by inch account of the journey up there so just to give you a general idea. The track's single lane and varied between dirt and sand, ruts and ditches mean you've got to to take a bit of care with wheel placement and you spent so much time leant over at what seems like a 45 degree angle you get use to seeing the horizon slanting diagonally in front of you.

Creek no 2 seems easy until you drop into the deep waterhole at the end

The creeks can have really steep banks meaning you've got to avoid impaling your car bullbar first on the way in and the way out can become tricky from some creeks without winching. Some rocky creeks have fast flowing water concealing large, deep potholes you really don't want to drop a wheel down, others look shallow to start with only to drop into waist deep waterholes further down, some have soft sandy bottoms that bog you in the middle of the water and some are simply deep.

The "Muffler Tree" at gunshot creek, shows how careful you gotta be climbing out of it.

Lesson learnt on this creek - if I don't put up a wading sheet in deep water my headlights fill with water, then my bulbs blow.

All good fun, what makes it though is the fact that everybody travelling the track (of which there's a few, this isn't as remote as say the gunbarrel) is on holiday or travelling, having a good time and if anything happens you'd know it'd only be a short time before someone else turns up and helps you out. There's plenty of radio banter and even if no one is in sight you can usually get an idea of how far away people are. Bushcamping by the creeks is no 1 activity on the line, they make pleasant camping spots and ideal vantage spots to watch people trying (and sometimes failing) to navigate the creeks. It's a bit like mooring up your boat on the visitors pontoon mid afternoon and sitting there with a glass of wine watching other people coming in and doing the same.

Gunshot creek - and yes those are entrances/exits (there's about 5) , you're supposed to drive over them... thankfully there was a slightly easier one which didn't require a winch / parachute

We camped by the Dulhunty river, one of the best spots on the line we reckon. There's a few shallow pools you can wash in without to much worry about being snuck up on by a croc. We'd also now caught up with the cyclists from Moreton who had left earlier the same morning, in a stroke of comic genius (well we thought so) we'd flown a pair of bright blue spandex cycling shorts one of them had left behind from our UHF aerial as we motored through the group struggling in the soft sand.

Stop 66 Punsand Bay
After the rigours of the OTL we were happy to take some easier roads now up to the tip itself. Crossing the Jardine River involves shelling out $88 for a short chain ferry journey, as extortionate as this is you are by now a long way from anywhere and the only other alternative is taking on the old Jardine ford. This is very much in the “potentially vehicle destroying class”, very wide, very deep and fast flowing, all a recipe for being washed away, to top it all off the Jardine has one of the worst records of croc attacks in Oz.

The Jardine ferry, all $88 worth

One of several WW2 plane wrecks in the area

Once into aboriginal lands north of the Jardine roads conditions became quickly worse with severe corrugations rearranging bits of car and my temper. All was forgotten though once we reached our destination – Punsand Bay, about 15k from the tip itself. We ended up with a plum camp spot within two metres of the beach and settled in to explore the tip for a couple of days.

Sunset at Punsand Bay

The walk to the tip takes about 20 minutes and is part rocky scramble part rainforest track, rewarded with tropical paradise like views of the beach and coastline around. We caught up with an aussie family also making the pilgrimage and after taking turns to take photos they shared the remains of their bottle of champers with us!

Camped right by the beach

Later that day we took on a beach drive to some old ruins and graves of a family that initailly settled in the area in the late 1800's. This was good fun despite Charl having to dig out the rear of the car which I managed to bury to its rear axle in soft sand when attempting a steep sandhill strewn with rocks (nothing a bit of digging and the old floormats under the wheel trick couldn't get us out of). You'd have thought we'd have learnt by now. Still, it was a textbook rescue and without witnesses so no need for us to be embarrassed.

Stuck in the Sand and the view from the tip

You could easy spend a week poking about up here at the tip, some of the roads are wild with the narrow and winding sand tracks being totally enclosed by the rainforest, so tightly you can here the sides and roof of your car scraping as you make your way slowly through them.

Charl is turning into a budding nature photographer

At Punsand our neighbours were two older couples , away together, who we had a great time chatting to. They spent sunset having a drink on the beach and they seemed to enjoy our stories about our trip. In there mid sixties and seventies they'd made it up here towing a off road caravan, what a great way to spend your retirement.

Our neighbours enjoying a sunset drink

Stop 67 Eliot Falls

Time for the journey south and the northern part of the OTL. The first creek was called Nolan's brook and was the deepest we'd come across so far – over my waist with a soft sandy bottom that looked all too easy to get stuck in.

Checking for depth at Nolan's - hmmm should we really be driving through this

Class - driving back home is going to be so boring.

Ha - water poring off my windscreen, and ,more worryingly, out of the fuel tank!

I waded across with our winching stuff so that if the worse happened I wouldn't be fishing about underwater trying to get it out my boot. Sometimes in these situations it's just worth having other cars about and after a brief wait a group of 4 cars obliged turning up on the other side.
The leader of their group belted across without barely checking it, then we got across ok – I belted into it pretty hard and just saw this massive bow wave chucked up by our wading sheet obscure all vision through our windscreen, still we made it across unlike the poor guy after me who managed to bog his back end in the sand of the creek bed.

Once all safe on our respective side we crossed back over to have a spot of lunch with the group – it's that sort of “we're all in this together” type attitude that makes the Cape York trip such good fun. This group were a group of farmers from Victoria.

I didn't drive it all - Charl took on this slippy, steep section, followed by a hairpin, in a creek, with soft sand on the bottom

Some of the bridges were ah..rustic

We camped next to a series of waterfalls known as elliot falls and ended up sharing a pitch with our neighbours from Punsand Bay. That's the other thing about this place, it may be almost the size of England but you end up seeing the same people all over. We also hooked up with a couple from the Gold Coast who were heading our way in a short wheel base land rover he'd had shipped over from the UK. Not many of those around.

Elliot Falls and Fruitbat falls, a welcome rest break

Stop 68 Captain Billy's Landing

Opting to take the supposedly quicker bypass route south we rattled ourselves and the car over some of the worst corrugations we'd seen before turning off into the National Park and heading to the coast where we camped at Captain Billy Landing. Not quite sure who Captain Billy was, from what we picked up an aboriginal guy who was guiding some white folks around, but the landing remains – used during World War II apparently and more recently as a drug smuggling landing.

The beach at Cap'n Billy's

We thought it would just be ourselves and Pete and Sam (the Land Rover couple) camped over but, proving that Caoe York really is the smallest place in the world, the two guys who we'd travelled part of the OTT northwards with (Dave and Justin) turned up and our two vehicles became a convoy of four.

Stop 69 Moreton
The following day we travelled as a group back down to Moreton where I had to collect my surfboard and have a final catch up and farewell drink with Brett and Kathy. The plan was to travel as a group down the Frenchmans track and across the Pascoe River – which we'd bottled on the way back up – although Dave, being pressed for time, decided to carry on that afternoon and we said our farewells.

A few hours later he mysteriously returned – we all though shit, it must be bad if Dave hasn't crossed the Pascoe. He'd actually had a nasty run in with a whipped headed black bellied king one of Australia's many ridiculously venomous snakes. It had wrapped itself around his diff and no matter how many kms driven, stones thrown or sticks poked it wouldn't get down. I don't know how but eventually it got off – we later learnt all you have to do is drive through long grass and they'll get off. So now you know if a snake interrupts your M3 commute to work you just need a field to drive through.

Running repairs at moreton. She is actually up on a high lift jack on the front - not hoisted from a tree as one guy thought when he saw this photo

Our evening campfire was crashed by two guys connected to Moreton who had some interesting stories to tell. Spending their lives digging up stuff around Australia that the Australian military really didn't want digging up. In particular 2nd world war bunkers apparently blocked up and left to be forgotten to avoid big clean up costs. After a couple of hours we'd had enough, Charl in particular was probably about to hit the pair of them for being generally obnoxious so we retired and left the rest of the crew to be talked to for another couple of hours.

Stop 70 Cooks Hut – Iron Range

The following morning we had picked up another recruit – guy called Vaughn & his wife who Pete & Sam had met previously on the cape(the worlds smallest place). So in a convoy of five we set off to tackle the frenchmans track.

Now we were quite used to passing big groups and tag along 4x4 tours by now, you could usually tell they were coming by the inane radio chatter with the lead car offering all sorts of useful adive such as “careful, twig on the road”, “watch out for the puddle on the left” or “caution, pebbles on road”. However easy we found it to be derisive about these groups though it was a good laugh doing it in convoy, with a bit of banter over the radio and someone else up ahead to hit any tricky patches first. Crossing the pascoe river certainly seemed less daunting with cars on either side of us and a couple of mechanics in the group and after a bit off deliberation and poking about in the big holes between the rocks we all made it across without incident.

Above - the Pascoe crossing

Last time we'd come into the Iron Ranges National Park we'd gone through to Chilli beach but this time we stopped about 35k inland slap bang in the middle of the Jungle. The group had split but Charl & I camped overnight before doing the 10k old Coen rainforest walk the morning after. It was good to stretch our legs and we got to see the elusive (but vocal) eclectus parrot which is quite a find if you're into ornothology over here

The Iron Ranges National Park

Stop 71 Archer River Roadhouse & 72 Lakeland
There's not that much to say about our next couple of days making our way off the cape. By this time the car had had enough, it had added several new rattles and bangs to it's range, it's headlights were full of water from creek crossings and in general I got the feeling it was saying “enough is enough, take me back to the tarmac now please.

The Archer River Roadhouse

Archer and Lakeland were both pleasant stops we'd recommmend. Lakeland has a huge flock of sulphur cockatoo's – the avian world's nosiest bird, so either bring your earplugs or a rapid fire airgun.



3 Carriage Road Train, they have right of way, in all situations !

Cape York was simply incredible. Exciting driving, good people, stunning scenery. Go there !