' A bicycle! A bicycle! Where in the kingdom is my bicycle?

We were feeling that we must push on now if we are to see all that there is to see in this vast land. However, as so many adverturers that make there assult on the summit, we came unstuck. We grew tired of the corrogations and the monotonious tarain,  so we decided to turn back short of the goal and head toward the Atherton tablelands instead. (There is quite a distance in Queensland's pointy hat from Cooktown leading up to Cape York) Soon after our about face, our bike rack came unstuck. Nor are we sure quite where its unstuckness struck, as it was mounted on the end of the camping trailer and not on the truck (This is becoming slightly too Dr Seuss esk, but the butt of the joke is that we did not hear them go. From the butt of the trailer that is...(To all those who puzzle themselves wheather there is a sound of the tree falling in the forest where there is no one to hear it fall. Well that sound is reverberating throughout God's great unknown along with the sound of our bikes falling off the back of our camping trailer!) Here is a picture of where our bikes used to be. I think it looks rather more tidy now.

Here is the before shot with the droopy rack that we had repaired in Cooktown

And to finish off this post here are a few nature shots that came our way during the day.

Elim Beach

Setting out from Cooktown about 1/2 a days drive northward, we diverted towards the east coast from the highway, heading for Elim beach. We first stopped off at a small indigenous community (Who's name absolutely escapes me) about 40km from the beach where we thought that we needed to get a permit. Apparently permits went by the wayside some months earlier. We were given instructions about how to get there and when we arrive and to pay 'Eddie' for a camping site.

Driving out it became clear that we were getting more and more remote, even the gravel road giving way to a sandy based rut that was about door height deeper than the tundra. Another indication was the increase in abandoned vehicles that had had one too many floggings littered the sidlings here and there.

Coming to the ocean we eventually found Eddies camp, a building or two with a very home made feel, (I am being kind) a water tank and a satellite dish. In a moment or two Eddie appeared. He was quite something to behold. An indigenous gent who might have been fifty years just as easily as he could have been a hundred. He looked at our rig and thought that we should take a look at the spots down by the shore line (because we might fit between the palms)

I came to admire Eddie as he clearly had business acumen and entrepreneurial skill. Recognising that a certain subset of traveler despised those who own a 4WD and yet never let it off the pavement and onto the real country out woop woop. Yet those very same travelers like a certain degree of creature comforts (or as I suspect without the slightest shred of evidence, that the only way that those guys wives will accompany them into the back of beyond, is if at the end of the day, that the road filth and grot can be washed off and they can become civilised once more.) Eddie meets this balance perfectly. He builds showers out of corrugated iron and installs a water filtration system to the local stream that works when the tide is out. However, that was about all, as to go any further might take the wild out of the place.

Talking with Eddie was also a great education. A skillful conversationalist, he would scope out where your passions might lay and feed into those. For instance, to a well to do traveler he might talk of how he never took any handouts, worked for every thing he had and that he despised other indigenous, slating them as lazy and needing to learn how to work. To one of the wives he might drop in that he was married to a Scotswoman who had since died, leaving one to imagine what living with him must have been like, and that she must have been the making of this extraordinary fellow or he the death of her. To me as a Kiwi, he might talk about Jonah Lomo, a giant umong men and how his skill at Rugby exceeded all of the skill of any Wallaby that he could remember. After a chat with Eddie, everyone went away happy, including Eddie who seemed to have a steady flow of travelers rolling through his gate. Eddie was a traditional fisherman, a hunter of crocs at some time in the past - I think that this part of his story was to allay the fears of his guests that would camp between the mangroves. ' There are no crocs here. There used to be, but I shoot them with my 303, so then they all clear out. They know, crocs are smart! there is one way up there at the other end of the beach, but not at my camp...I wouldn't go swimming in the mother ocean though...' Most of all Eddie was a character and he made our three days there memorable.

We came to Elim beach to enjoy the beauty of the famous coloured sands which are considered to be among the best in the world. but so enjoyed Eddies camp that we never quite made it along to see them. Instead we had a wonderful time in our Kayak, exploring the shoreline at Eddie's camp or chatting to other travelers. Later we learned from other travelers that the coloured sand canyon was the highlight of there trip and I am kicking myself that we never spent half a day there as well. It just goes to show that you need to stop and spend time smelling the roses even when you are on holiday.

Cooktown

Cooktown now lay within our grasp. We wanted for more supplies and a charge of our batteries (Camper trailer batteries that is - we by this time have had a very restful trip, thank you for asking) so on we go.

We were noticing with each 50km we go up that the temperature and humidity are more and more becoming quite Darwin like, so we were less and less inclined to want to do very much of anything strenuous.

The rain forest is changing too as we go, with less under-story and a bit more grit and red earth beneath our feet.

The trip had taken its toll on our poor old bike rack (and the poor old bikes that were on it) We had the rack reinforced in Yippoon, but as you can see, it has just decided to become droopy elsewhere.

 We found another engineer willing to 'have a go' at it,  and soon enough we were upstanding types again.

We came into Cooktown itself and found a really nice place with most of the services we required and a wealth of history from Queensland's very early days.

The exhibits in the museum were very interesting, telling the story of Captain Cook's encounters with the local indigenous and the town's boom through the gold rush and the bust to follow when the gold ran out.

But most of all, Cooktown was just beautiful. There is a high hill within the town that has a 360 degree view over the harbor inlet and the town itself that was quite outstanding at sunset.

We did make one surprising discovery at Cooktown. That is that no one seems to know how to cook!

We thought we would go our for dinner at the local RSL (yes I know... we were always only gonna get meat and three veg... but!) and had the singularly most dreadful plate of goop that I have ever seen in all my travels. Interestingly the staff were chipper and cheery and were keen to know at every opportunity how we were enjoying our meals (We opted not to tell the truth).

The following day we thought we would grab some Chinese at the dinner, which was almost the equal of the night before. So if you are reading this and you can cook, fame in your own lunchtime lay at the end of your spoon in Cooktown!

Here are some more nice shots from the Area

Bloomfield Track

Leaving Noah's Beach we set out north once again towards the Bloomfield Track with Cooktown laying beyond it. While the roads are still sealed, they are a much more serious prospect than the run of the mill. In some stretches, bitumen would give way to concrete because of steep incline. On one of those, no mater how much we lent forward, the truck ran out of power/gears and we came to a shuddering halt half way up. Low range saved the day and we wound our way up up up with trailer still in tow. It was on these stretches that we also learned that if we put the heater on full bore that the motor coped much better, even if we didn't. (More on the cooling system in an upcoming post...)



It's true that most of Australia is very flat, but Northern Queensland  has some of the most breathtaking rain forest clad mounts I have ever seen. Following every steep assent came an equally impressive descent, most of the time taking us back to sea level again.

On one of the beaches there were mangrove trees growing right out in the middle of nowhere, as opposed to the border between swamp marsh and sea. Mangroves are a favorite haunt of crocs and I would usually never venture towards them up here. but this one mangrove all by itself in the middle of the beach was something like Moses' burning bush which we just had to go look at. ( and you could see that there were no crocs there - I don't mess with those bad boys!) 

Further along we came to the town of Wujil Wujil which has a great waterfall. We stayed a couple of nights at Hayley's caravan park where the owner told us of a 4WD track that wound for miles up to the head of those falls. The next day we set out with the kayak on the roof of the truck. We arrived at the top and put in.  The top of the falls is a sacred indigenous area where we were not allowed to take pictures, but we were able to paddle along this wonderful stretch of water almost right up to the head of the falls. The birds and butterflies were wonderful as we lazily paddled along.


Tanya has put together  a collage of our day up at Roaring Meg (from the places we were allowed to take pictures)

Cape Tribulation

Moving north from Mossman we started to get the feeling we were almost in the woop woop. Cossing over the Daintree river by barge, into the rain forest which just abounds (I don't know any better words for it) Cell coverage was getting patchy at best. All in all we were starting to feel that we were away from it all! We stayed for a few nights at Noah's beach where again we were just a short stroll to the shore which doubled as our morning shower substitute and Tanya's office (there was just enough signal there to download and mark her student's assignments - between the high tides) It has been many years since I had played in such wonderful surf that just kept on rolling in. We also spent a couple of afternoons at the tree top walk and also a really interesting morning at an insect museum. The Daintree is a wonderful place.

Did you know that they grow tea in the Daintree region - well you do now!

On the 'my cup is half empty' side of things, a couple of cans of coke costs $9.00 ($1.00 in Cairns... Ok you have to be in a supermarket and buy 24 at a time, but $9.00! Yes we are in the woop woop!)

Still further north - Mossman

 Upward and onward we go from Cairns to Mossman - and of course the 'must see' Mossman Gorge.
Now don't get me wrong, the gorge was a great spot. It was just that everyone was there seeing it - it seemed to us, on mass. Well maybe that was what they meant by it being a 'must see'. I would have put it as a 'Well if you must, you must...' but we wanted for more exquisiteness on the path less trod.
Overall I would give Mossman a B- with a 'could try harder' on the report card. possibly because the people in the camping ground were peevish and nasty types. I hear the trail north calling...

Cairns

3/4 of an hour north of the boulders we came into Cairns. Its a great city, with a medium town feel. People are laid back and seem to know that they live in paradise - even though its pretty tough to find work I'm told.

We caught up with an old friend from our Auckland days, Sarah Jordaan (Nee Wallace) and her husband Leon and two beautiful kids. It was a great time of catching up!

While In Cairns we of course did all the must do tourist days out, except we are yet to explore Green Island which I am also told is wonderful to snorkel around the jetty. But we will hopefully squeeze that in on the way back down as we need a couple of Tanya's pays to come in first.

One of the special highlights that we did do was the Karanda Sky Train which is a cable car that runs for miles through the rain forest with two stations along the way. It gives you a commanding view and the rain forest is spectacular.

At the top end of the cable car is the township of Karanda which is nestled amongst the rain forest and river. There is a butterfly zoo? in which the breed butterflies for tourists like us to wander amongst. IT WAS FANTASTIC! and Tanya got some (I think) outstanding photos

The ultraviolet coloured Ulysses butterfly catch your eye in bright sunlight as they flutter along. They are very timid however and for every on the move so as not to be eaten by birds. When they eventually do stop, they rest there wings closed almost immediately and the underside colour is quite drab in comparison. Tanya did however manage some shots just as they landed or were just taking off. hence the movement in the pictures.

before we left Cairns we bought a double kayak to add to our kit. We have not used it very much as the further north we travel the further into croc country we go, and after our time in Darwin, I have no intention of messing with those beasts!