DAINTREE, CAPE TRIBULATION & COOKTOWN

I departed K9 River Retreat on the Atherton Tablelands in drizzle. Not ideal when my route had me descending down a steep, windy and possibly slippery road through the rainforest to  the coast. Luckily there was little traffic and by using low gear l managed to keep my speed right down and stay mostly off the brakes. By the time I got to the bottom the the rain had stopped. I was heading north to Daintree Village just over 100km away. The trip was a pretty one through cane fields with the tropical rainforest covered mountains to the west and ocean to the east. I arrived around midday. The small caravan park was quaint and quirky. I took a powered site for $22/night as my van battery was low due to no sun on the solar panels whilst up at K9. The lovely grassy area where I set up abutted the boat ramp and jetty area, but was not so close that the crocodiles could visit.

The village is tiny. Aside from the van park there's a nice pub with lovely outdoor area overlooking the river and a couple of shops. There was a river cruise departing at 3.30 so I booked in for James and myself. There were very few tourists around so I figured it would be pretty quiet, which it was - only a handful of us on the flat bottom barge. We cruised slowly up and down stream for an hour and were lucky enough to spot a good sized croc.

Late afternoon four caravans arrived at the park and took up spots adjacent to me. They were couples from the Sunshine Coast and Bundaberg areas. It wasn't long before we got chatting and I joined them for drinks. It was great to have the company.

Next day it was drizzling - an ideal day to go for a drive. I really wanted to see Cape Tribulation so James and I made our way to where the ferry crosses the Daintree River and paid $27 for a return fare. The narrow road wending its way through the world's oldest surviving rainforest is amazing - its like driving through a tunnel of vegetation - truly beautiful.

Following the road northward we stopped at a lookout to admire the views and also had a walk along a couple of the pristine beaches.

Cape Tribulation is usually a very popular destination not only for Australian tourists but also those from overseas, including backpackers. It was hardly surprising therefore, given the Covid-19 border closures, to find it was almost deserted with many businesses closed. The road past the village continues up to Cooktown but is only suitable for 4 wheel drives so I turned around and headed back. On the way I stopped at one of the boardwalks through the forest and even saw a Cassowary!

Back at camp that night I settled in with my new grey nomad mates and not only got treated with a fire but a serve of fresh scallop mornay. Yum!

We all packed up next morning, my friends to head homeward and for me to continue further north to Cooktown. The quickest way would have been along the coast through Cape Trib, a distance of 150km,  but unfortunately the track was not caravan friendly. That meant heading south to Mossman, then east, then north - twice the distance! The Mulligan Hwy was, however, a great track and an interesting drive. Enroute I stopped for a break at one of the lookouts. It was quite late afternoon before, after a lap of the town, I elected to prop at the somewhat decrepit Peninsula Caravan Park because I could camp out the back with lots of space for James to wander off lead.

Cooktown is an interesting place with a fascinating history, much of which I learned from Nick, the owner of Riverbend Tours. In June 1770 Captain James Cook hit the Barrier Reef and put a hole in the hull of the 368 ton Endeavour. His crew of 87 men had to offload a heap of stores to avoid sinking and they limped into the nearest river they could find. There they beached the ship and conducted repairs over a seven week period. There is a rock on the shore that pinpoints the spot of the beaching. He later named the river the Endeavour River. Nowadays Cooktown has a population of over 2000 people, many of whom are indigenous. There is a boutique fishing industry there for prawns and live Coral Trout for export. A big boat goes out with several little tinnies for 10 days at a time and a single bloke in each tinny fishes all day then keeps the catch alive before it gets transferred to holding tanks in the big ship. The live fish then go by road to Cairns where they are sent overseas. That is something I did not know.

I stayed at Cooktown for three nights. It was a bit of a ghost town with tourism way, way down, but had quite a nice feel about it and some interesting spots to check out. One drawback was the massively gusting winter southeast tradewinds. It would have been great to spend some time on the local beach but being sandblasted was most uncomfortable.

Grassy Hill Lookout is a great spot to view the town and the Endeavour River - so long as you anchor yourself to something so you don't get blown off!

I drove about 50 km both north and south of town and there was some fantastic scenery.

Sunday was a big day with a trip to the renown Lions Den Hotel via Black Mountain. Lions Den is a fabulous old pub about a half hour south of Cooktown where you can view all sorts of memorabilia, have a drink and a good meal and even camp if you want to.

Sunday night I did the sunset river cruise and it was bloody fantastic - one of the best things I have done on my travels. The two and a half hour cruise only had eleven passengers and owner, captain, tour guide and waiter Nick did a great job. It was BYO with a delicious antipasto platter provided, the information he gave was really interesting and it was a bargain for $67. What a perfect last day to my stay in Cooktown.

COBBALD GORGE, RAVENSHOE, CAIRNS & KURANDA

The road from Forsayth into Cobbald Gorge was reputedly pretty rough dirt with lots of corrugations. I'd spoken to quite a few caravanners who'd already done it and was in two minds whether to drop the tyre pressure on all eight wheels of the Jeep and van down to 25psi. In the end I figured the hassle and time of doing that for the sake of 43 km each way probably not worth it. I'd take the trip slowly and if needs be do it en-route if the going got too tough. As it turned out the the road was not as bad as I expected bar the final few kilometres onto the privately owned station. 

On arrival at Cobbald Gorge Village I checked in at the rather flash reception area which was across the road from the bar/restaurant/endless pool area. It was like an oasis in the midst of the dry, dusty outback. After parking the van on my allocated $16 per night pp unpowered spot on level gravel overlooking bush, I took a wander over to the facilities to have a look. It was pretty impressive.

The camping area is set up on terraced levels on the side of a slope that ends up on a large grassy area at the bottom. It wasn't even afternoon yet there were a lot of campers in already as well as guests in the accommodation cabins. As the day wore on many more arrived completely filling the powered sites. The day was comfortably warm in the mid twenties, but as the sun went down so did the temperature. Each site was equipped with a fire pit and I made sure to light mine before it got really cold, which it did with the thermometer dipping to near zero early next morning.

I was booked to do the $98 three hour gorge tour at 10am next morning. Three bus loads of tourists, with around 12 people in each group, were taken for a 15 minute 4 wheel drive along a bush track and over a wide, dry river bed to the gorge area. My group did the boat ride up and down the gorge first. The boat was not very wide nor stable so once seated we all had to sit fairly still. It was clear as we traveled up the ever-narrowing gorge the reason for the boat being skinny. Anything wider would not get through. It also had silent electric motors at each end as there is no space to turn it at the end of the gorge so the guide just swapped ends to take us back.

Cobbald Gorge is only 800 metres long but it is, as the literature states, "a breathtaking natural wonder tucked away within the rugged sandstone formations of North Queensland". The one hour boat ride was worth every penny, the commentary was good and we even got to see a freshwater croc!

After the boat ride our Savannah Guide lead us on a one hour loop walk showing us lots of bush tucker options. The loop traversed the gorge over a glass bridge spanning a 13 metre gap with a 19 metre drop into the permanent spring-fed water below. We were all provided with booties to cover our shoes so as not to scratch the glass, which I must say was pristine. The views were amazing!

I stayed two nights at Cobbald Gorge Village. Aside from the gorge tour which I would highly recommend, there's not a lot to do unless you want to swim (25 degrees is not hot enough for me) or spend money wining and dining. There are some walks, which are lovely, and a communal fire at night which James and I attended on our second night. There were a few people sitting around it so I did have some company to chat to.

Thursday morning we headed back to Forsayth where we turned northward to pick up the Savannah Way at Georgetown. If I thought the road into Cobbald was rough....well it wasn't a patch on the several unmade sections of the Forsayth-Georgetown road. Bloody hell, I've never experienced such huge corrugations. It was crap! Once on the Savannah Way I headed east. I was undecided where to go next. The Undarra Lava Tubes and Innot Hot Spring were en-route, but with the Queensland border just opened from Covid 19 shutdown I was concerned I might have trouble getting into Cooktown, and that was a priority. I could do the other stuff on the way back west in a few weeks. In the end I overnighted at Ravenshoe (pronounced ho, not shoe!). It was late afternoon and I had been on the road for over six hours, so it was great to stop. And as a bonus, the van park I chose because a powered site was only $18 was located at the steam railway museum and from 4-6 that afternoon the local 8 man jazz band was playing on the station. Nice!

Ravenshoe is Queensland's highest town being situated on the Atherton Tablelands southwest of Cairns and it was not surprising that the overnight temperature dropped below zero....brrr! I was very happy I had power and could put the heater on. Friday morning I headed off and descended down a very, very windy road toward Cairns. The view from the top of the range was beautiful.

My plan had been to catch up with my old friend Peg who lives north of Cairns but when I contacted her she was on her way down to Brisbane for a couple of weeks....bugger! I still needed to go to Cairns however as I had ordered some 10 litre Brown Brothers Dry White casks from Dan Murphy and they were due to be delivered to the local store on Monday or Tuesday. I figured I could kill a few days in the area without too much trouble anyway. I booked through Youcamp at Mick's Creek Bush Camp a half hour drive south of the city. It was a nice enough spot with plenty of room and cheap enough at $12 per night - much better than paying $40 to go into a sardine tin in one of the Cairns caravan parks. The caretakers were a couple from the Netherlands, Robert and Margaret. They were very welcoming and shared their open air kitchen and fire. Robert also pointed out some great walks on the property, particularly one to the top of the hill behind where I was camped to look out over the water to Cairns city. It was a great spot to watch the sunset.

On Saturday I went into Cairns and did a bit of sightseeing on the esplanade. And of course, I stopped for a glass of late lunch bubbles at Cairns yacht club.

Kuranda is one of Far North Queensland's iconic tourist destinations. It is an alternative lifestyle village set in Australia's oldest living tropical rainforest 25 km northwest of Cairns. It's famous for it's colorful bohemian atmosphere with markets, outdoor eateries, wildlife and beautiful scenery. Barron Gorge is a local attraction that can't be missed. Accessed by road, the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway or Kuranda Scenic Railway Barron Falls are a spectacular sight. I would love to see them in the wet - though I don't think I could handle the heat and humidity during summer.

K9 River Retreat was another little gem I discovered through Youcamp. It was close to Kuranda and still not so far from Dan's that I couldn't pop back to pick up my booty. Set on 100 acres of bush it has a river running through it and lots of open space. Owners Chris and Petra run dog boarding kennels on the property and have just opened up for campers to try and generate some income given Covid-19 has badly impacted their kennel business. I was the only visitor and really enjoyed the experience. I stayed three nights, sightseeing by day and, of course, having a big fire each night.

Kuranda area is normally teeming with tourists this time of year so it was so sad to see the impact of Covid on the village and surrounding attractions. The markets were closed as were the railway and cableway. It was eerily quiet in the normally bustling, colorful and festive space. At least the natural attractions were open, so I did get in some sightseeing. Crystal Cascades was one such outing and it was conveniently on the way to Dan's where, thank goodness my supply was successfully delivered.