It was nice to have a good night's sleep last night - apart from a couple of drunken ladies having a noisy conversation up till about 10:30. We set the yabbie traps last night and had two cherabin in them this morning - our first ones ever! We cooked them up and ate them at morning tea time just for a treat - yummy! This creek is pretty fished out because it is such a popular spot but hopefully we will find other places where we can get more and make a meal out of them.
We decided to head up to the Mexican cafe in Mount Molloy for lunch as they have world-famous Mexican hamburgers that we had last time we came through and were dying to have again. Unfortunately, when we got there they weren't making them today!! We were devastated!! We ended up getting a bacon and egg burger - one between each couple - they were HUGE, but just not the same as the Mexican burgers - ah well - maybe on our way back through.
Got an email this afternoon from Dometic saying we won a competition that we entered recently and won a $1200 Waeco fridge - BONUS!! We had to send in a funny photo with a caption - not sure which photo actually won yet as we sent in a few - so excited!!
3 August 2010
We were up early this morning and headed off to Cooktown. We stopped to look at Black Mountain on the way which we have seen before - very interesting to see the whole story behind it as to why it is like it is (or should I say why they are like they are as there are a couple).
Stopped for lunch at Cooktown and did some shopping before heading off to drop the trailer off at Steve's place (a guy who Ross met through the Land Rover forums). When we arrived Steve was there - what a great guy!! The place we are leaving the trailer is on his property where he has a shed but no house - he works in radiology and they supply him a house in town. We dropped off the trailer, met the horse and the local dogs and Steve suggested a place to camp down on the beach nearby but it was blowing a gale so we decided against it and ended up staying overnight at the property at Steve's place.
4 August 2010
I got up to do some work this morning and Ross did an oil change on the Land Rover and Steve turned up at about 8ish to do some work on his property which Ross helped him with (Steve has the week off work). Then Steve helped Ross make a bracket for the back of the caravan.
Its a glorious day but still quite windy - we are hoping it will calm down soon. Steve is a keen camper and told us lots of great places to visit on our journey north so we are definitely looking forward to that!
Ross & I rode the bikes into town - no mean feat as it was quite hilly!! Mum and dad took the 4x4 in and we had a bit of a look around town before riding back and having a hot shower compliments of the solar showers.
By this time it was getting late and we hadn't organised anything for tea so we took a ride into town in the 4x4 and had barramundi and chips - yummy!!
5 August 2010
I got up and worked again while the boys worked on the caravan again. By the time they finished it was too late to pack up for the day again so we hand washed our sheets and orgainsed a few more things read to hopefully set off again tomorrow. We have decided to just take a quick trip to Starke River goldfield and then come back and vote on the 11th before we head up to the Cape - we will get there eventually!!
6 August 2010
We packed up and left this morning but by the time we stuffed around and went into town and filled up with fuel, etc, etc we didn’t end up leaving Cooktown until about 11:00.
First stop was the lovely Isabella Falls where we stopped to take photos and have morning tea. We were back on the road by about 12:30 and headed down Battle Camp Road and it wasn’t long before we were off the bitumen and onto dirt road. The countryside was absolutely lush!! It was just beautiful and was interesting the whole way.
After about an hour or so on the good dirt road it started getting a little rougher – we were driving through swampland and although it was dry today when we were driving over it, you could see where other people had driven when it was wet which made for lots of ruts in the road. The road steadily got worse and worse, but nothing that was overly concerning but we wanted to get to a the Starke River crossing before stopping for lunch so we pushed on and got through at about 3ish before we stopped for lunch and only one broken egg! What a lovely little place! We decided to stop for the night so set up camp, went for little walk to explore, set out the yabbie nets, had a swim, etc. Dad and Ross found some pumpkins growing near the campsite so they picked one and we will do something with it tomorrow night probably.
We had chicken casserole on the camp oven for dinner followed by damper on a stick filled with golden syrup for dessert – yummo!!
The only other car we saw all day on the dirt road was one other 4x4 that came through a little while after us and was heading for the Jeannie River mouth.
7 August 2010
We were up early to check the traps but we didn’t catch anything at all . We had managed to catch a small eel on the line the line last night but that was all – not a very good fishing spot!
At about 8:30 two more cars came through and they had come most the way last night but it had started getting dark so they had ended up camping about 100 m the other side of the river crossing – never knowing there was a river there!! They were spewing!! We had a bit of a chat and worked out they were from Foster – which is only about an hour south of Port Macquarie – small world!
We were back on the road again by about 9ish and headed off knowing it wasn’t all that much further to the spot we were heading for that Steve had told us about.
We saw our first bustard http://birdsinbackyards.net/species/Ardeotis-australis today – we had never seen one before – they sure are funny looking birds – big and awkward!!
It wasn’t long until the road started getting quite rough with lots of washouts and creek crossings that were quite hairy to say the least!! We got some awesome footage of both vehicles doing some pretty tough 4WDing – not to mention the little caravan – what a trooper –never missed a step!!
We ended up coming to another river crossing that Steve had told us to be very careful crossing – that very nearly made us turn around and go back but in the end we braved it and went across – there were big washouts coming into it and was very scary looking but in the end we all got across safely and were off again.
A bit further along the track we came to another crossing that I thought looked a bit scary and asked Ross to get out and have a look at it but he thought it would be no trouble and didn’t really have much of a look at it before he got back in the car. He had also forgotten to take the brake off of the caravan, which is important on river crossings. Coming up out of the crossing there were some big rocks on one side and when the wheels went over it, it made one of the front wheels come right up off the ground and it looked like she was going to tip – needless to say I panicked a little then and dad ended up standing on the front bumper to put some weight on the front and Ross managed to drive out ok. When we reflected back on it – the actual crossing probably wasn’t that bad but it was more that he didn’t pick the line very well and the fact that he forgot the brake off the caravan didn’t help!! All in a day’s work!!
There was a lot of driving through very rough terrain and it was very slow going and some of the time we were actually questioning whether we were on the right track but we eventually arrived in one piece very relieved and very elated to have survived such a tough journey and only one broken egg again. It is a lovely little camp site. There is a freshwater river that has a little waterfall running into a saltwater river. The freshwater river is croc free and fine for swimming and the saltwater river is good for catching fish – apparently. When we arrived we had a look where the waterfall went into the little saltwater creek and could see lots of big fish swimming about so we got the fishing line out but no luck. Later in the day a couple of people dropped by to say hello as they were passing through and he was a local and reckoned the fish were mullet and you would never catch them on a line.
We went for a swim.
We made banana and honey scones and had bacon and eggs for tea – tough life!!
8 August 2010
Ross and I were up early and went down to have a look at the river and the tide had been up overnight but was down again this morning – missed the tide!! The river is quite low when the tide is out and not worth fishing in so we will wait to see what its like this afternoon. We threw the casting net in to try to catch some bait but managed to get it tangled in some tree roots instead – thought we had better wait till the tide went right down before we went in and got it – we weren’t going to take any chances with any crocs.
Ross and I decided to go for a drive to see what the track was like leading out of here that the people had told us about yesterday. Well, that road was almost like a highway after what we had been through!! It took us 40 minutes with only a couple of toughish crossings before we hit a proper dirt road that is part of Lakefield National Park which leads straight back to Cooktown the easy way – phew!! We really enjoyed the trip out here but none of us were looking forward to tackling it all again in any great hurry – that was the most 4WDing any of us had done in a long time – we won’t forget it in a hurry –the Telegraph Track is going to be a breeze after this!! Ross wanted to see how the caravan would go on a short local run before heading up the Cape – we sure aren’t going to come across anything we can’t handle anywhere along the Telegraph Track!!
We spent an hour or so fixing the casting net this arvo before taking it back down to the river to see if we could catch any mullet for bait for fishing when the tide comes up. We saw a school of really big mullet and couldn’t resist throwing the net over them. Unfortunately there was a big snag right where the fish were and although we caught a big mullet – the net was completely destroyed in the process – bugga!
Seeing as the mullet cost us a net we decided to bring him back to camp and eat him!! Turns out that mullet is nice to eat. We also fried up some of the pumpkin that the boys had picked up from the last campsite - it was a good pumpkin!
We went back down to the waterfall tonight to see the height of the river – it was WAY up – it was amazing how high it comes up – couldn’t believe it. We tried our luck at night fishing but didn’t catch anything.
9 August 2010
Up early and down again to try our luck at fishing while the tide was still reasonably high. I caught a “giant herring” on a soft plastic but nothing else.
The rest of the day was taken up with doing as little as possible swimming, etc. We made pumpkin soup from the rest of the pumpkin that the boys had found - yummo!
It started raining later in the day and we started thinking that we should pack up and head off in the morning as some of the terrain we had come through to get here would turn very slippery very quickly with not much rain.
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