- remoteness
- crocs
- 4WDing
- boating
- fishing
- crabbing
- wild animal spotting
- bull riding
- cooking over a hot plate on a campfire
- gorgeous rivers and landscapes
- trying to keep the 4x4 and camper in a straight linedoing 80-90km over bone jarring corrugations
- HOT weather.
The main thing we have learnt since leaving Cairns is to believe only about 10% of what people tell you as their experience levels are always different to yours one way or another. We are all having fun spotting wild animals, spotting of insects is not always as fun as they all seem to be on steroids here. Green tree ants are my least favourite after I got too close to a nest and ended up with about 20 bites inside my t-shirt, all the while trying to watch out for crocs as I launched the dinghy. At least the sting doesnt last long! The water was dark brown with logs floating past, every 3rd one looked like a croc.
I have found my favourite spot so far, spot x. 70km from Weipa it took over three hours of driving. Pretty slow really when the first 20km was done at about 80-100km on a dirt road. It was this track that finally put some vegetation scratches in our faithful Patrol and also brought about the first use of our exhaust jack. 50m before our campsite after some disagreement between the navigator and the driver we got bogged in some talcum powder soft sand up to the running boards. We lifted the Patrol with the jack and dug the sand out from in front of the wheels and running gear. Then we put sticks under our wheels and finally managed to get unstuck. We then dropped the trailer off at the campsite and went back to pull a landcruiser out of the same spot (he had a campertrailer on as well).
It was all worth it, the place was stunning with a degree of ruggedness thrown in. Big crocs, sharks and big tides will do this to a place. There was only one tide a day. A local camper told us how to fish the tides for black bream and also taught me the proper way to throw a cast net. After just one lesson I could catch mullet and herrings for bait.
I fished the drop-off in the river early one morning with a 24kg set, wire trace and a 300mm bream on a big hook. 15 in into it the clicker screamed. I put the reel in gear and struck. The rell still screamed with the drag wound up for a 150m run then I dropped the fish. There are some big bull sharks there.
I also fished the reef 500m from the river mouth and had a big old turtle breach right next to the dinghy. It gave me a little bit of a fright.
Our camper was in a great spot to see gt's, queenfish and barra finning the surface in the hunt for bait fish. The water temp sat between 24-26c. The outside temp around 30c.
This place had its drawbacks, no power water or toilets but who cares when on a good day you can catch mudcrabs, barra, gt's, queenfish and mangrove jacks in the river and then go to the reef for totally different fish including sweet lip,coral trout big sharks and the odd game fish cruising past. We were only there 4 nights and had a blast. I could have stayed for 4 weeks no troubles.
The only other drawback we had was high winds that have plagued us through the whole of the Cape York trip. IN fact later at Seisa (near the tip) it was too windy to get the boat off the beach.
For the 4WDers - we did the Telegraph Track (bar Nolans Creek), it had some great camping and swiming holes. The track itself was not hard but still good fun. We camped a night at Captain Billy's Landing on the East Coast, it was like Wellington South Coast in a screaming southerly. 1 tonne of camper trailer felt like it was going to take off. Not much sleep that night.
Cape York was great fun, now once the camper trailer's fixed its on to the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Savannah Way now.
Mudcrab hunting in a likely spot but no luck - wasnt keen to go into the mangroves with all the crocs around!
Ruben shows Ash the bream he caught. We ate it and five others for dinner.
Paradise! Lagoon in front, sea to left and river to right.
Ok so we didn't see this one, its a photo of a photo. This was taken by someone on Cape York, its a croc crossing the road and yes that is a full grown pig in its mouth.
We all went for a ride upriver in the boat, and saw so many crocs it wasn't funny (really!) They all headed for the water as we came closer, and we could see their shadows just sitting under the water waiting for us to leave.
This croc is the king of the river - 18ft long.
This little croc (about 4ft we guessed) instead of hiding from us when we came up in the boat jumped in the water and let us come about 2mtres away - he bared his teeth though. The little fella had attitude, he did the same on the way back!
Three different options at Gunshot Creek, we took the one on the left.
An 80 degree incline, did they do it?
No, not really but it was pretty impressive to watch. Straight down then crunch, they did manage to plough it forwards a bit though. Three vehicles from this group tried, the only one to get through was a Nissan Patrol. Go the Patrol!
Log bridge crossing at Cypress Creek, did this one twice. Doesn't look much but its a 4m drop under there and the logs arent fixed in place.
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