POSTED Saturday 4th Jan 2013
It's been several days since we left the Burke & Wills camp. We continued on down the Savannah Way to Normantown & then on to Karumba. When we first arrived in town we were not impressed, the caravan park in which we intended to stay had little shade & the town was quite ugly, it is a port for exporting cattle. One important thing to note is that you can get diesel there for $1.60/lt which is much cheaper than in Normantown $1.77. We were just about to leave when we found another section of the town, across the way. That part must be the tourist part, there were several shops 2 more caravan parks and several houses. You also have access to the beach from this section. We stayed in the older caravan park as it had more shade, if I had to pick again I think the one closer to the water would be better as it might get more breeze.
When we pulled up to book in S turned off Dorothy, and then she wouldn't start again! He tried & tried, the man from the park came out to try and jump start her but no go. Finally we got started with a tow, start. The battery was very hot, next morning she still wouldn't start so we had to get AANT (RACQ). Turns out to be a battery so we had to buy one from them $205 :o( but at least we get 2 years warranty, the old battery was only 18month old but only 1 year warranty.
We went down the beach and put in a couple of crab pots, next morning we had 2 muddies and a barra, You're not allowed to catch barra at this time of year but, he was dead & still fresh so we kept him. We were going to spend that night on the beach but there is only one tide per day in the gulf, so we packed up and went to our next camp site. This site was about 20kms out of Normantown, there is a creek and an old abandoned camp ground. We put some pots in, when we were walking along the bank there was a big splash and I saw a crock in the water, S says it was a freshy but looked like a small salty to me.
We had no luck getting any cherabin or redclaw and the water was a bit to dirty any way so we left to continue the journey. We stopped at Normantown again on the way out, we were thinking about going the back way to Cooktown but the tourist guy and AANT guy said it would be too wet. Turns out they've had no rain here yet and all the creeks along the suggested way were empty. The 2 most interesting things along this route Cobbold Gorge and Undara Caves were closed for the season, so we should have gone the back way after all.
There was a mango tree with a sign 'Water Me' that had some nice mangos on it, at Mt Surprise there is a free car wash that cooled the car down. We've arrived at a very nice campsite just short of Ravenshoe. there is a nice clean creek running through and lots of shade, we'll stat here for 2 days.
17o38'50.26" S
145o20'51.07"E
POSTED 8th Jan 2013
17o23'83.60" S
145o09'48.46"E
We've arrived at a lovely campsite east of Irvinvale. Yesterday we going to camp @ lake Tinaroo we drove around the checked out the curtain fig & cathedral fig both were really cool but I couldn't see any figs. The lake was full of blue green algae so we couldn't camp. (also you have to pay to camp there and I'm not willing to fork out money to camp by a lake I can't fish, swim in or drink from thank you very much!! )
In Atherton we had a look at the crystal caves $22.50 each but well worth it. It has crystals and fossils from all over the world and the worlds largest amethyst rock. It was really cool. We dropped in at the Atherton Tourist Information, they weren't a lot of help the woman suggested a camp site between Herberton and Irvinvale, but turns out the camp site is non existent. You can camp on the common at Irvinvale, but we wanted to use our generator and there was no water in the creek so we moved on. The road is unsealed and very rough with a 10% incline in some places. He who shall not be named had to climb some hills in 1st gear (he still wont let me drive loll) Herbertville and Irvingvale are quite interesting and full of history from the tin mines in the 1880s, I prefer Irvingvale and it it more authentic. We found this campsite about 5pm. There is a dam with swans & ducks, in the evening a family of wallabies came down for a drink. The water too muddy to drink but OK for a wash up.
POSTED 9th Jan 2013
Today we continued on our journey to Cooktown we stopped at Mareeba at the chocolate and coffee factory you can eat all the chocolate and drink all the coffee & tea you like for $19 per head, and IF you have one of their brochures you get $5 off so we only paid $28. We scoffed lots of chockies, drank a mountain of coffee and I forgot to mention about the liquors we scoffed them down at well, I liked the coffee liquor at 22% best. They also have a really interesting coffee museum where you can look at a vast collection of coffee & tea memorabilia we certainly had a lovely morning. To top it off you only have to ask and they will give you a free pass to enter again next time! The lady didn't look impressed when I asked but handed over the pass anyway. We'll be back later :) We found a nice campsite on the way to Cooktown, the water is clear and there is plenty of shade so all is good.
Camp's location 145o25'01.23"E 16o58'78.63"S
Friday 11th January 2013
Yesterday we arrived at Cooktown. On the way we saw the Black Mountains, absolutely amazing! They look like a huge dump truck has come in and dropped a load of granite rocks onto the ground. They were formed by the lava cooling too fast and causing the granite to crack up. The top layer of clay quickly eroded and then you were left with a whole lot of granite rocks, that have now eroded to round boulders. There is no soil on the rocks so plants can't live there. So now you just have these big piles of rock with just a few plants that don't need dirt hanging on, very weird.
Cooktown is a nice little village not really set up for tourists. The main occupation seems to be fishing with lots of boats in the water. It is the first landing place of James Cook, so there are a few monuments. I found the museum most interesting. It was an old convent boarding school before the war and there is lots of history about the nuns and the girls that went there. There is of course some history about Cook and the Endeavour's anchor. The old building is lovely and the grounds though small have an interesting array of plants.
We camped overnight by the beach at the mouth of the Annan River. It's quite hard to find you have to go down by the golf course on a sandy 4WD track to the beach, then you make your way along to the river. We got out directions from the bait shop. S nearly caught a sting ray, had him almost on the beach but the line snapped. I also nearly caught something, it ran out all my line and nearly pulled me into the water, unfortunately it was too big and my line snapped as well.
We put some pots in, we'll see if we get some crabs or lobsters about 2pm today.
It's quite hot here on the beach, we have plenty of shade but the air temp is high. I'm sitting under a tree, about to get another coke, S is fishing, he keeps nearly getting the big one but no luck so far. Earlier today we were inundated by the tide, had to move the car and gear so it didn't get wet. Table and chairs had water around them, just when we thought we would end up with wet bums, the tide turned and went out again. The camp site is very picturesque but too many people have left their rubbish, I will pick up 10 pieces of their rubbish, if everyone did the same, the place would be clean in no time!
In the area of the campsite there are several coconut trees and some other bush tucker trees so we won't go hungry, S just returned with a shooting coconut, yum better go :o)
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