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)