On Sunday September 12 2010, John and I set off to have a look at Cape York Peninsular.
After a couple of big days driving we ended up in a nice little camping ground at Lakeland between Mareeba and Cooktown. It was a surprise to find out that some of the residents there worked in the nearby banana plantations! (this is a flat dry inland area but there is a Lake to irrigate from.)
This was the end of the sealed roads. Initially we were weaned by sealed sections of road which became fewer and farther between. By lunchtime we had made it all the way to Musgrave Roadhouse and had seen a variety of vehicle and trailer parts littered along the way (I wont call it a road) including a bent and broken Landcruiser and bent and broken box trailer (snapped draw bar).
These distances would mean a lot more to us after a week or two! Note the one 2nd from the bottom, that was what we had spent all day achieving....... but we made it to Coen by the end of the day
The northern most point of the Australian mainland is the "Tip" of Cape York, just 10
o south of the equator and a mere 180 km to Papua New Guinea and the Torres Strait Islands in between. The vast interior of the Cape takes most visitors by
surprise with
endless miles of unsealed corrugated, dusty roads and forever changing scenery.
(more valuable info Click here)
These are some quotes from the link above which I now fully understand.........
“A sturdy well maintained and prepared vehicle is needed and should you have to tow a trailer, make sure it is a purpose built off road type. The roads in Cape York are some (?) of the roughest in the country! A selection of essential spare parts should be carried without overloading your vehicle.”
“With heavy traffic unsealed road surfaces can become severely corrugated and break up into deep dust holes very rapidly.”
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| Coen Caravan Park (Note the extensive landscaping) |
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sEXCHANGE HOTEL
COEN
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This as far North as the Canter Van went, we decided to walk the next bit!
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| The view from the highest point. |
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| Looking back to the west. |
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| This is 200 meters from the Canter photo! |
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| As far as we could walk North. |
| Click here for more info on the Croc Tent |  |
| This souvenir shop is the last place on the way to the tip of Cape York, run by a nice young couple in the middle of nowhere. They are shutting up shop for the wet season and moving to Brisbane temporarily (she is having a baby) but intend to return. She has a degree in Bio Medical Science but loves living and working here. |
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| The "Road" to Fly Point. |
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| I need to finish the sealing of the wardrobe I think! |
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| Dust and rearranged cutlery! |
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| DC3 WWII near Bamaga |
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| A right turn from the"nowhere" road above and you are on the main road to Cairns |
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Punsand Bay Campsite
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| Lunch at Old Laura Station |
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| Old Laura Homestead |
Laura Station played an important role in the establishment of a pastoral industry on Cape York Peninsula, as one of the earliest pastoral holdings on Cape York Peninsula to operate under a license to occupy a new run of crown land. The place has associations with the development of Cooktown as a regional centre the Palmer River Goldfield, and with the establishment of transport and telegraphic communications on Cape York Peninsula.
Laura Station contains a rare surviving example of an early Cape York Peninsula pastoral station house that is still structurally sound and in an intact and essentially original condition. The place contains outbuildings and yards which typify traditional methods of construction that are no longer practiced, and which demonstrate a continued reliance on the superior qualities of local building materials.
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| Hidden Dish Drain in Lakefield National Park. |
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| Captain Cook Monument in Cooktown. |
Cooktown is Australia's first non-indigenous settlement, discovered and settled by Captain Cook and his crew in 1770. Since then, Cooktown has not had it easy. From 1873-83, Cooktown was established as the port for the Palmer River gold rush, which exacerbated race relations between the Europeans, Aboriginals and Chinese.
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| Endeavor River House Boat (Very well named Gull Cottage!) |
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Black Mountain near Cooktown
The mountain is certainly significant for the Aborigines. Kalkajaka is what they call it, the name meaning the place of the spear or more loosely translated as mountains of death. The Aboriginal stories of how it evolved certainly add to mystery of this incredible mountain range.  The Aboriginal belief is that the mountain originated in the dreamtime with a man, being similar to a medicine man and also a chameleon, who had the taste for human flesh. He killed and ate a young chief and so was banished and fled to the mountains, occasionally surfacing to eat a human or two from his own tribe. On his last venture out of the mountains he turned into a goanna to escape his angry fellow tribe members and had the misfortune of being struck by lightening. Being no ordinary goanna he exploded and left large piles of charred rock everywhere. Another belief of how the mountain became is that two brothers were fighting over a girl and were attempting to kill each other by rolling these black rocks down from the hills. The rocks eventually piled up as more and more were thrown, creating the Black Mountain A ravine located near the Black Mountain was the site of a massacre of Aboriginal people by European settlers, maybe the ghost of the murdered Aborigines haunts it, taking revenge on the white man for his atrocities upon them. Many unexplained and mysterious disappearances have been attributed to these black mountains. Both humans and cattle have wandered into the vicinity of the black mountains and disappeared without a trace never to return. The first record of a mysterious disappearance was In 1877. A carrier, along with his horse, was out searching for some bullocks that had strayed into the boulders. He, his bullocks and his horse were never seen again. Thirteen years later, Constable Ryan, stationed at Cooktown
Geology and landform
Black Mountain's structure resulted from slow geological processes. Some 260 million years ago, a mass of molten rock (magma) slowly solidified deep below the Earth's surface, forming a body of hard granite rock. As softer land surfaces above eroded away, the sparsely fractured top of this granite was gradually exposed. Weathering and chemical decomposition removed loose material along weak fractures extending downward through the rock. More resistant rock remained as large rectangular blocks, their corners becoming progressively rounded into boulders. The solid granite core of the mountain now lies beneath the jumbled cover of boulders.
The granite rock is actually a light grey colour and composed of mineral such as feldspar, mica and hornblende. Black Mountain's distinctive dark appearance is due to a film of microscopic blue-green algae growing on the exposed surfaces. Grey patches and boulder fractures indicate ongoing rock disintegration - a process accelerated dramatically when cold rain hits rock, sometimes with explosive results.
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| Lion's Den pub rules. |
The Lions Den Hotel is situated on the Bloomfield Track, 4km from the sealed Mulligan Highway to Cooktown or 65km north of Cape Tribulation via the 4WD Bloomfield Track.
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| Dust and rearranged cutlery! |
This
souvenir shop is the last place on the way to the tip of Cape York, run by a nice young couple in the middle of nowhere. They are shutting up shop for the wet season and moving to Brisbane temporarily (she is having a baby) but intend to return. She has a degree in Bio Medical Science but loves living and working here.
This is part of the remnants of Cape York Wilderness Lodge which was handed over to the indigenous people in about 2006. It
was a thriving resort owned by Qantas and probably explains the road to "nowhere" which also passes Bamaga airport.
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| This is what the road to the tip was like but only the last 10 Kl ms. |
Aerial View of this area
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| The End of the Road North. |
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| The ONLY swimming hole we found, Fruit Bat Falls. |
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| Me about to wash my clothes and myself. |
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| Magpie Geese at a waterhole in Lakefield National Park. |
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| Nifold Plains area of Lakefield National Park |
Travel north past Hann Crossing and you will arrive at the vast grasslands of the Nifold Plain.
Quote of the trip from a youngster to his mum............
"It is a long way to this rubbish dump"....
He misinterpreted the word "TIP"
