This is typical view on the road to Cooktown

Famous Palmer River Road House on the Peninsula Development Road

Now we know where towns are.

This is John and Rhonda. John is the expert on our journey to Cape York.

We gave the Gallahs a bit of a fright

At Mt Carbine on our way to Cooktown

CAPE YORK TRIP - 2005

CAPE YORK TRIP - 2005
Sunday 24 July to Wednesday 27 July 2005

We have had a great few days in Port Douglas. We have met up with 2 other couples, Steve and Leith from Western Australia and Phil and Helen from Gosford at the caravan park who also have Bushtracker caravans. We are going to meet up with a 3rd couple at Mount Molloyand then we will be off to explore Cape York together. It will be a safer and more fun with 4 vehicles in convoy.

It has been unseasonally wet according to the locals but that has not stopped our exploring. We spent Sunday driving up to Cape Tribulation and beyond in convoy with the other 2 4WDs. The caravans were left at Port Douglas and our car was so happy not to be pulling an extra 3 tonnes.

We crossed the Daintree River by car ferry which must be even more beautiful in the wet season, and then headed into the Daintree National Park. Each beach was a stop and a walk. The beaches were spectacular and the grey clouds made for silver water. The Bloomfield Track north of Cape Tribulation is 4WD only and leads to Cooktown. The storms of the previous few days must have been quite strong as there were a lot of fallen trees on the track. There were rivers to cross and rain forest to drive through and of course much less traffic than at Cape Tribulation.

We stopped for lunch along the Bloomfield River and took note of the Crocodile warning signs.

We turned off the Bloomfield Track at Wujal Wujal and headed down the CREB track (Cairns Regional Electricity Board) which had been closed in part due to the wet.. Our ultimate goal for the day was to reach the Roaring Meg waterfalls off this CREB track but the track was quite slippery, the water crossing were getting deeper and it was getting late. We headed home enjoying the beautiful rain forest that was surrounding us.

We have spent some time preparing our van for the trip to the Tip and are heading north to Cooktown on Wednesday morning. We are really looking forward to the journey.

Nature at work - Magnificent art produced by a crab living in the hole in the sand on the beach at Cape Trib.

Cape Tribulation - late afternoon

Fantastic Fungi in the Daintree

Here we are at Cape Tribulation

South End of Cape Tribulation (in the mangrove)

Cape Tribulation looking North

Nature is just beautiful in the Daintree World Heritage listed National Park

This is Phil & Helen in their F250 crossing another creek on the Bloomfield Trek

How do these trees survive?

We are 3 vehicles in convoy - this is Steve & Leith crossing one of the creeks on the Bloomfield Trek north of Cape Tribulation

Cape Kimberley - Beautiful Beach - Looking South

Crossing the Daintree River

CAPE YORK TRIP - 2005

CAPE YORK TRIP - 2005
Saturday 16 July to Friday 22 July 2005

We have now been travelling in our new Bushtracker home for a week. It has been fantastic and everything so far has worked the way we thought it would. We basically headed north without any sight seeing as we have seen this part of the coastline before and our goal is to get to Cooktown to start our northern trek.

We stopped off at Maroochydore to fix a few things at Bushtracker on our way. We spent the first 5 nights staying at roadside rest stops. The rest stops have great facilities, toilets, water, BBQ, space and lots of other travellers at each stop with stories to tell. Everyone is so friendly.

The weather for the first few days was sunny and increasingly warmer as we travelled north however over the past 3 days the rain has been heavy at times with strong winds. Nothing has bothered us and the van has no leaks. The car is behaving itself and pulling our 3 tonne van effortlessly, the only penalty being that it CONSUMES a massive amount of petrol!!!! We have stopped off at some beaches for lunches and a stroll and the road from Cairns to Port Douglas which hugs the shoreline is spectacular. The highway north is flanked by huge fields of sugarcane along with some banana and mango plantations. The many shades of green overlaid on each other are beautiful and contrast with the blue tinge of the mountains in the background.

We have seen no live kangaroos so I guess the kangaroo deflecting whistles we put on the front of our car must be really effective??

A huge male Southern Cassowary managed to stop the traffic on the highway as we all watched it look at us and then decide not to risk crossing the highway after all. It was very funny to see and interesting to hear the truckies talking about it on the UHF afterwards. We arrived in Port Douglas on Thursday night and are staying at our first caravan park 6km out of Port Douglas. We have met up with 2 other couples also towing Bushtracker vans and hope to travel together to Cape York. Today we had breakfast together in Port Douglas and then walked the main street of shops.

We then spent a few hours walking through Mossman Gorge north of Port Douglas, it’s a rain forest (part of the Daintree) and it rained through the canopy for all 5km of our walk. But it was just spectacular. So far, so good.