When you travel in a group on a tour you establish a routine quickly – up at 6am, breakfast at 7, on the road at 8. When you arrive in camp its tents first, then luggage, then you help set up the camp kitchen. Happy hour starts around 3-4pm (or whenever the heat gets so unbearable that a beer at 11am often seems reasonable) and we are all exhausted and heading for tents between 9-10pm.
The trip from Cairns to ‘the tip’ is just over 1000km and is slow going due to the quality of the road, which is unmaintained in some parts. The first road to be cleared through the centre of the Cape was for the original telegraph line in the late 1800’s to improve communications between the top end and towns further down the coast. The telegraph line ceased to operate in the 1960’s and the Old Telegraph Track has became a notorious 4WD destination for adventurers, although where it gets really hairy there are diversions for those with a little more sense (referred to as “chicken tracks”!).
These days there is also a central road maintained for the most part and called the Peninsula Development Road, and our guides tell us there are future plans to tar it all the way to the top. If Cape York is on your bucket list get up here soon – a tarred road could take away a lot of the adventure in our opinion and will most certainly bring with it more people, when the remoteness is part of its appeal.
After leaving the metropolis of Cooktown we passed through tiny settlements of barely 100 people, and stayed alongside roadhouses or old telegraph stations where the population is literally the family operating the business. One such night was at Archer River where we camped in a paddock with about 20 cows wandering through our site and under a sky of stars that could take your breath away. We were all a bit excited about the prospect of a bar at the roadhouse and watched Friday night football with the aboriginal locals from Lockhart River with half time entertainment provided by a travelling entertainer and his guitar – a true outback experience and a night that will be talked about for years!
We drove kilometres of red dust on corrugated roads for days and saw some incredible wildlife along the way – wedge tailed eagles, a tawny frogmouth owl, kangaroos, an emu, frogs, a fresh water croc, a brown snake and parrots that have had us reaching for a book to identify them. The variety of wildlife has blown us all away, so too has the number of cane toads you are forced to sidestep after dusk (night time bathroom trips are challenging….)
From Archer River it was the bright lights of Weipa, the Rio Tinto mining town on the Gulf of Carpentaria where the mine operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and the salaries are generous. Population – 4000; shops – about 11; salt water crocs – too many! It was criminal setting up tents with a view of the coast and not being allowed within 20 metres of the water.
Thankfully Weipa put on the most incredible sunset as consolation, enjoyed from the deck of a boat as we sailed the Gulf at dusk with Western Cape Eco Tours. As the sun set over the water we were treated to sparkling wine, a cheese platter, a jabiru in full flight and our first sightings of salt water crocs in the wild. Just your average Saturday night.
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