Day 84 Port Douglas to Ellerbeck

Today we decided to get away from the rain. The weather forecast wasn't very promising and although this area of Australia is beautiful we decided to come back at some point when the weather would hopefully be nice and sunny.

Before driving out of Cooktown we visited the marina as we hadn't got around to that yet. It's a beautiful little harbour and on a sunny day the views must be stunning I imagine.

The drive along the Cook Highway towards Cairns was also gorgeous although the weather didn't do it any right. Such a shame.

In Cairns we fueled up and did some shopping and then we drove south most of the day, past all the scenic highlights as the weather was just awful. Well be back someday when the weather is better!

That night we camped at Meunga Creek Caravan park at Ellerbeck. 

Day 82 & 83 Mossman Gorge and Port Douglas

Sander would have loved to drive the Bloomfield Track to Daintree but apparently the wet weather had made the road pretty impassible and people advised us not to drive this route.

So instead we drove back via Mt Molloy and took the turn to Mossman from there.

I (Monique) really wanted to go to Mossman Gorge as I had been there 11 years ago and loved it. On arrival we were shocked though! The hole place had been commercialized and was beyond recognition. As it was a long weekend it was very busy. Instead of paying for a shuttle bus we decided to walk the 2,5 km to the gorge. The gorge was as lovely as I remembered but it was just overloaded with tourist. Such a shame. In a way I felt glad that I had been able to see it unspoiled years ago. 

We went for a swim anyway and the water was absolutely freezing!! That's the reason it is save to swim here actually.... crocodiles don't inhabit these waters as it's just too cold for them. Haha... suckers!

At the end of the afternoon we arrived in Port Douglas and so did the rain. We booked ourselves into a really nice little campsite in the middle of town. 

The Iron Man Cairns was on that weekend which meant we had to stay another night as the Cook Highway was closed because of thisevent.

For those of you who have been in Port Douglas before you can imagine it's not the worst place to be stuck at! Port Douglas is a bit of an up-market, tropical holiday destination at the ocean with heaps of restaurants, markets and a beautiful scenery in the middle of rain forest.

Unfortunately the weather was terrible (I guess you can't have it all) and it just poored down both days.

We had a good time anyway and made the best out of it. It was also a great opportunity to catch up on washing's and to talk with fellow travelers.

Day 81 Cooktown

The night had been very windy and even during the morning the eggs and bread were flying around as we tried to prepare breakfast.

After packing up we drove to the lighthouse lookout which was beautiful, although the skies were grey.

The rest of the morning was spent strolling around town and in the afternoon we visited The Cook Museum which covers all the details of when Captain Cook set foot in Cooktown in 1770.

In the late afternoon we drove to the Lions Den Hotel which was just outside of town where we spent the night. 

Day 78 to 81 Cape York to Cooktown via Weipa

It was time to face reality again... we had to leave paradise behind and face the long drive back towards Cooktown. We took a little detour on Cape York to have a look at an old plane crash site. This detour made us miss the the last ferry before lunch break. This meant waiting an hour. Bummer!

The drive back was as before; boring, dusty and bumpy. It was that bumpy that the door step let loose and Sander had to get the whole thing off. Oh well, just a minor problem luckily!

By now our whole car was covered in orange dust (from the in- and outside). Being Dutch we normally have no problems with that particular color but by now we were pretty over it.

We camped at Moreton Telegraph Station again as we really liked their setting.

From there we took the turn to Weipa. Weipa is a little outback town on the west coast of the Peninsula. Although its population is over 3500 you can only reach it on unsealed road. They are also still hundreds of kilometres away from anything. The reason so many people life here is the simple fact that the worlds largest bauxite mine is situated here (bauxite is the ore which is used to make aluminum).

Curious about life here we wanted to check it out.

Just before arriving into town we were amazed to find traffic lights!! Soon we found out they are used to give way to the massive mining trucks.

We booked ourselves into the only campsite in town and drove around town for a bit. It wasn't a big town but all looked very neat and organised. There even was a big Woolworths (supermarket). 

The next morning we got up early. After breakfast we packed up. parked our car and went on the mine tour we had booked ourselves into.It was a very interesting tour that not only gave us access to the mine (which is quite unique) but also told us everything about the town.

After the tour we continued our trip downwards again and stayed the night at a free campsite just outside the little town of Coen.

The next day we had about 400 km to drive and after 250 km we were relieved to be back in Laura on sealed road. Our happiness only lasted a few minutes because during lunch Sander heard a soft hissing sound. He quickly learned it wasn't the sound of me frying toasties, it was another punctured tyre. Not again!! Ah well, at least it happened back in civilization and before I had finished my toasty the man from the general store had already fixed our tyre again!

From here the drive to Cooktown was a bit longer then we expected but it was a nice drive with some spectacular views over the tropic environment (there's heaps of sugar cane and banana farms around). We passed Black Mountain (a strange rock formation) and finally made it to Cooktown. The weather started to get bad so we quickly set up camp in a tiny little caravan park in the middle of town. It became extremely windy that night. The lady from the caravan park said that was pretty normal for this time of year but we thought it was already pretty intense. As they just had a cyclone here we could only imagine what that must have been like!!

Above you can the see what a corrugated road looks like (trust me it got much worse than this).

Day 76 & 77 Cape York

After arriving on the Peninsula we camped at Loyalty Beach the first night, which was a nice campsite right at the beach. It was about 40 km drive from the ferry. 

Arriving in this part of Australia doesn't necessary mean arriving in civilization. 

Actually we both felt more like arriving in a completely different country. More than anything it resemblances life in the tropics and local people look more like Islanders then Aboriginal. We've heard other people say it feels like being on the Fiji Islands. 

People here life very remote with civilization like we know it still more then 1000 km away. It’s  weird to us, especially because technically we are still in Australia… it just doesn't feel like it!

The next day we drove to Cape York. The drive there took us right through the rain forest on a (sometimes) very narrow, corrugated track. It felt quiet adventurous! 

When we made it to the end we had another 15 minutes of climbing over some rocks to get to our final goal of this trip…  the most Northern Point of the Australian Continent.

We had made it to The Tip!!!

It felt like a great achievement and the views were amazing!! The desolated beaches, the ocean in all the colors of blue you can think of and a view of tropical islands in the distance.

We would like to think that we are only one of few tourists that make it all the way to The Tip, but the fact that it was hard to find a free parking spot on arrival says enough. On top of that Sander ran into somebody he knows from work in Melbourne! It’s a small world after all!

Still everything feels still very much desolated and remote to us here. 

That night we camped at Punsand Beach Resort. A beautiful campsite right at the beach. It's actually really weird arriving there as you have to follow this dirt road or a few kilometers, crossing a few creeks on the way. And just when you get to the point that you think 'where the 'bleep' is this going?' you arrive at this little piece of paradise. They served delicious wood oven pizzas for dinner and we enjoyed our stay that much that we booked another day which was spent relaxing, reading and enjoying the views.

We even spotted a crocodile in the ocean at night! We didn't see much more than a blinking eye though. 

(but I guess that’s enough for safety reasons anyway!)