Author: Mrs A
Location: from Mount Carbine to Cooktown, far North Queensland
Sunday: We began the day with a sunrise stroll along the Bustard Downs property, and true to its name there were several bustards about – large birds looking like flying roast turkeys, extremely ungainly!
We returned from our walk to have breakfast and pack up and let Tassie have final run around.
Once we hit the road, we headed north through amazing scenery, the roads winding upwards between rolling hills, with several lookouts along the way.
It was around 2pm that we rolled into Cooktown, the final frontier settlement before heading up Cape York. This is the top of the road on the east coast for us on this trip.
It just so happened that today was the finale of the Cooktown Discovery Festival, a three day event celebrating the landing of Captain Cook in this area to repair his ship in the Endeavour River (named after Cook’s ship), in June 1770.
We missed the re-enactment in full 1770 dress, but caught the end of the go-cart races, and watched the winner roll down the hill by the pub and crash through the barrier of hay bales. The local police were there with their speed guns to test how quickly the carts travelled – it all felt very quaint, like a 1980s England local village fete, with a lovely community feeling.
Unlike in other areas of Australia, there is a real feeling of acceptance, with black (Aboriginal) kids running around with white kids, and the same with adults. We later chatted to a local Aboriginal guy who told us that Cooktown is probably the first place in Australia where there has been real reconciliation and acceptance amongst both parties. It certainly feels a lot closer than we have seen elsewhere.
We went into the Cooktown History Centre run by local volunteers. What an interesting place! It covered the history briefly of the local Aboriginal population (likely in this area for 40,000 years, concrete evidence of up to 15,000 years), through to Captain Cook’s landing with excerpts from diaries written on board the ship, right through to the gold rush in Victorian times, the impact of war, cyclones and up to current day. It even covered the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1970, with her royal car delivered by ship two days early.
We walked along the Main Street just soaking up the atmosphere, before returning to the rig to drive another 20 minutes up to our campsite.
Several people had recommended we camp at Endeavour River Escape, a bush camping area at the back of a passion fruit farm. As we drove in, we were so impressed. A beautiful wooded area with defined campsites, each with their own fire and bbq, and plenty of space between each one.
Further still, as we were guided in to choose our spot, we noticed another Zone parked up. We decided to set up camp nearby. Eric and Gail, fellow members of the Zone Owners Facebook site and owners of Zone #92 popped over to say hello and exchange a few notes on how our vans are going. Yet more lovely Zoners – it must be a condition of purchase!
Monday: Tassie decided to forgive us for tearing her away from Bustard Downs and had a nice long stroll around the campgrounds here – blissfully free from dogs and with plenty of interesting smells. Once she was tired, Mark and I headed into Cooktown.
Our first stop was to book ourselves on a visit to some local Aboriginal artworks with a local ‘interpreter’ who can explain the stories and history, as well as take us through some of the bush medicine and plants. We handed over $200 to Willie, a local guide and who we look forward to spending some time with tomorrow.
From there, we drove up Grassy Hill, a local lookout with some spectacular views. It was extremely windy at the top, with a 35 knot wind blowing off the sea, and almost knocking us off our feet on occasion.
Memories of our fabulous Daintree River cruise encouraged us to book a similar sounding trip for Wednesday afternoon on the Endeavour River. Fingers crossed it delivers.
One thing we have no doubt about is the presence of crocodiles. When we checked into camp yesterday the farm owner, Terry, mentioned they had only lost one visitor to the crocs…we thought he was joking. Managing to get a phone signal, I checked on Google, which confirmed that indeed, about 10 years ago, a 62 year old gentleman was taken by a croc here. They never found his body, just his watch, a sandal and a new video camera. Apparently he had waded into the shallows of the river to pick up a crab pot. Nasty.
This evening we sat around the campfire with Gail and Eric, exchanging travel stories and caravanning tips and hints. It’s always so good to learn from those more experienced than us, and with 7 years of travel around Australia under their belts, this is one couple which have a lot to share. They are old friends of the passion fruit farmers, and staying for free in return for their labour picking fruit from the vines.
Gail gave us a couple of passion fruit to try – they’re huge, and Terry gets $1.50 each fruit down in Sydney – they were certainly delicious. Gail told us of how she risked her life to get us these fruit – coming face to face with three feral boars while she was in the vines. Fortunately she kept her wits about her and escaped unharmed. The fruit tasted all the more sweeter for her efforts!
My staff have continued to escort me up the east coast of Australia, and I must admit some of the locations have not been too bad. I have not experienced species discrimination lately (yes, would you believe some camping areas allow those noisy, smelly canines but will not allow felines!), which is always a positive.
In addition to those big lizards, there has also been the occasional snake…they tend to make them rather large up here though – I still prefer to stalk a ribbon in the comfort of my safe-Zone.
Right, time for another nap, so over and out for now.
We took this as a good omen that we might see one of the rare and endangered Cassowary birds – at between 1.5 and 2 metres tall and up to 80kg, they would be hard to miss!
From here we continued north, calling next in at Dubuji Boardwalk and Myall Beach. The short walk was very informative, and as always full of incredible sculptural rainforest trees and vines.
We drove up as far as the 4WD commencement of the Bloomfield Track which leads up to Cooktown, before turning and calling in to more short walks at Cape Tribulation and then Noah Beach.
There’s so much to learn about the rainforest, and incredible that this has been around since the time of dinosaurs, many of the plants changing very little in that time.
Oh and the Cassowaries? Nowhere to be seen…
It is such a sweet area, with tin roofed pub/cafe/Australia Post, an information centre, general store and campground. Right beside the campground (which has a viewing platform across the river) is a boat ramp and wharf, which from the 1800s up to 1933 (when the road from Mossman was opened) served as the main route in and out of the settlement. It was from this wharf that residents exported butter (it is a dairy farming area) and brought in everything else they needed to live relatively comfortably. Today it is where small craft take visitors out on crocodile spotting tours, or bird and wildlife spotting tours if you choose to go with a local expert as we did.
Next we travelled back along the road to Daintree Eco Lodge and Spa. I had booked in for a two hour session as my birthday gift from Mr A. Needless to say it was luxurious, a massage with essential oils, body scrub, hot mud and washed down with warm water from the local waterfall, followed by a more intensive massage and deep conditioning hair treatment. I emerged smelling like a geranium joss stick, tingling all over with slightly greasy looking hair!
What a cruise. Not just the birdlife (to name a few we saw Striated Herons, Wompoo Fruit Doves, Great Egrets, a beautiful Sacred Kingfisher, Rainbow Bee-eaters, Sunbirds, Spotted Catbird…) but the stories of other wildlife (the snakes, the bats, the crocs) and the flora (Ylang-Ylang tree flowers – the main ingredient in Chanel No 5, the numerous fruits and seeds from the mangroves, the reason for the changing colours of the native hibiscus – yellow on day one, which drops off once pollinated, turning to orange and later a deep pink on further days until pollination is successful).
Apparently several years ago, Crocodie Hunter, Steve Irwin, flew up the Daintree River in a helicopter checking out the crocodile numbers and investigating all the waterholes on the way up. They found crocodiles as far up as 40km from the estuary in a waterhole at the top of a high waterfall – somewhere that traditionally people (including us) would have thought was safe from crocodiles. It made us re-visit all the beautiful waterholes we have swum in across the Kimberly, Lichfield and Kakadu in a new light!
Sunset was a whole new deal. Our skipper asked whether we would mind heading back a little late so we could watch the incredible phenomenon of the flocks and flocks of Eastern Great Egrets flying along the river to their roosting spots. Absolutely incredible. The breeze had totally dropped and as we sat there waiting the sky changed dramatically, from salmons and peaches to a deep Pinot red. Even the locals raved about the sky later on and the following morning!
The birds were also magical, and kept on coming…the photos do not do it justice, you really need to hear the flap of their wings and the frantic cries of the stragglers asking their mates to wait up.
We moved swiftly on to the fortified wines which were a little more palatable. We walked away with a bottle of Kaffir Lime, which would be lovely with a splash of soda water as a light aperitif, and a Chocolate port for those moments which require a little more decadence. We have a delivery of delicious Margaret River Amelia Park wines being delivered to Palm Cove ready for our return to Cairns, which will much better suit our palates.
Once away from the swimming areas it is relatively peaceful, moss covered rocks with a crystal clear creek tumbling down all around, surrounded by old growth rainforest of the Daintree National park. 
Birds flitted around, perching sideways on the vines that hang down from the canopy above and swooping across our path to catch the insects we disturbed as we strolled along. Being rainforest there was a lot of rotting wood, and with that an amazing array of colourful fungi – I drove Mark crazy with my gasps when I saw the next amazing colour scheme I had to capture.
Giant fig vines which had long overtaken their host tree were a key feature, looking like incredible sculptures with their expansive roots and vines, often more than a century old.
It is definitely a photographer’s paradise, with often two or three people already set up in front of lovely waterfalls with their cameras on tripods, stealing the best positions for their digital artworks.
We returned happy, having had our taste of nature and got showered and ready for dinner.
Fortunately we were pleasantly surprised – not only an interesting menu (for example an entree of prawn & crab salad, burnt corn, pickled coconut, chilli, shallot, green pawpaw and a ginger citrus vinaigrette, and mains of Spanish Mackeral with a rainforest salad – mesclun, Quandong, rainforest lime, roasted macadamia, lemon myrtle & vanilla vinaigrette) but also a great wine list. Top marks Mojo!
Returning to the caravan we found a pair of Ulysses Butterflies fluttering around the Zone – attracted to flowers planted specifically to entice these beautiful insects. Such a treat to see them.
We had booked the Toyota Landcruiser in for its 100,000 km service and so dropped it into the workshop while we went into the city.
The service did not reveal anything untoward on the car and gave us peace of mind for the next few weeks. We have booked it back in to get new shocks when we return to Cairns at the end of the month.
A beautiful view south towards Hinchinbrook Island was our reward on reaching the top, which we enjoyed along with a pair of sea eagles which glided before us. We’re just loving the richness of this tropical environment.
Other than a purple fingernail, and a few minor bruises (including a black and blue ego) there was no bad outcome from this one, and he was soon back in his boat continuing the trip.
We were dropped off at the caravan park, and we hurried off for hot showers to warm up.
Little Crystal Creek was our first destination, up a hair raisingly steep and windy road. It was worth the drive, with nothing little about the falls there, a spectacular series of cascades. We could imagine it would be a great place for a dip on a hot steamy day.
There is something so peaceful about being amongst all this greenery and water, the rainforest trees and foliage almost reflecting the movement of the water in its flowing vines, trunks and roots.
Tuesday morning began with fresh bread. I’d made the dough last night and after it had risen, kept it in the fridge ready to bake this morning. It came out nice and crusty and went well with the BBQ’d breakfast Mr A served up.
We had the whole campground to ourselves, which pleased Miss Tassie in particular who has been able to roam freely without fear of cars or dogs while we have been here.
Our final destination on our hike was Witt’s Lookout, the best by far, with a magnificent outlook over Halifax Bay and the Palm Islands.
Again, the rainforest environment was a big part of the drawcard, the fresh air (about 5 degrees colder up at the top than down on the plains), the lovely smells, the sounds of the birds calling in the canopy.
This area is home to one of the rarest of all birds, the endangered Cassowary, but sadly we didn’t see one. Hopefully we will have more luck at our next destination, Mission Beach.
New neighbours arrived this evening, and we were excited to see that they too are travelling with a cat. It’s such a shame that Tassie and Mau-Mau can’t have a chat in cat language and exchange stories about being felines on the road!
We were camped on the showground in town, surprisingly busy considering it is a dry dusty field, with some freshly painted, but fairly tired amenities provided. Apparently it is sugar harvest time, so many travelling farm workers have arrived to help with that.
The end of next week will see a huge harvest celebration, culminating with the burning of the sugar stubble.
We crossed a bridge and rode back on the other side, making a great 13km circuit.
Friends we had made in Moonee Beach back in March, fellow Zoners Cathy and Gawain Bowman are also camping here, so we snuck over to their Zone with a glass of red wine each (it’s meant to be a dry campground) to catch up on their news. They’re in Townsville to care for their son who is recovering from some major back surgery, and it was great to see them.
We found our way into town, collected a final parcel from the post office, and investigated The Strand, the road alongside the waterfront, facing out towards Magnetic Island, just 8km out to sea.
We didn’t see another cyclist on the bike path, and after lunch in town rode back, completing a good 32km ride. Many birds were spotted along our ride, including Blue Winged Kookaburras (they have a different laugh to the usual ones!), many Rainbow Bee-eaters, Egrets, Dusky Moorhens…the list is endless. Apparently the river is home to freshwater crocodiles too, but we didn’t see any.
A delicious curry from a local (very seedy looking) Indian takeaway concluded our day – we’re pleased the food was better than the ambience in the empty restaurant! Tomorrow we head offshore, out to Magnetic Island.
Wandering down the nearest little road we came out on this view. Almost every direction from Bowen there is an island view across crystal clear waters.
We jumped off the tarmac and enjoyed a short ride though the bush, until Catherine felt her tyre go flat! She’d picked up a bunch of thorns, so it was off to the local bike shop, which doubled as a purveyor of power tools! The dedicated bike shop that was here has now closed down, sadly an all too familiar story around Australia.
We had some stuff to collect from the local Post Office, and as usual it had arrived safe and sound. Using this system of sending our various care packages to a Post Office on route has been brilliant. They will hold it for up to a month free of charge, as long as Australia Post is the courier and not a third party.
Then I read the local tourist guide to Bowen that we had picked up at the information centre. Let me quote verbatim from the page describing Bowen’s Top 10 food experiences.
These brochures do nothing but seed expectations that are never delivered on when confronted with the reality of eating out and trying to buy fresh produce in rural Australia, with the odd exception that we always find so refreshing, because it is so unusual.
Bowen’s riches predominantly lie in its spectacular scenery and views, which we enjoyed on a 5km hike along the Cape Edgecumbe Walking Track.
