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Blackdown Tableland National Park.
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After our overnight walk out to Big Bend Camp at Carnarvon National Park, Sam and I settled back into the seats in the Troopie and set off on our journey north again. Leaving Carnarvon National Park we next headed across to Blackdown Tableland National Park, like Carnarvon National Park this was another national park that I'd read about in some long gone and obscure magazine I'm thinking, and like Carnarvon National Park this is a good one. Turning south of the Capricorn Highway we were onto the dirt straight away as the road dipped and dived through some creeks and across some marginal grazing land before starting it's long climb up onto the Blackdown Tableland. Once up on Blackdown Tableland in the national park Sam and I enjoyed a couple of the shorter walks before heading a little further into the park to do a 4wd loop. That night up on Blackdown Tableland also provided Sam and I with the coolest night that we'd get until we got back to Melbourne - many weeks away.
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There is a nice 4wd loop up in Blackdown Tableland National Park.
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Filing Blackdown Tableland National Park into the dark recesses of my brain marked - must visit again one day, Sam and I set off again. Dropping of the plateau we re-joined the Capricorn Highway and headed west, crossing a high point on the Great Dividing in the Drummond Range range along the way. Barcaldine provided a bakery for lunch and the Tree of Knowledge for some history, it also marked the spot where we left the Capricornia Highway and headed north again now along lesser roads. Passing through the tiny Aramac and then Muttaburra where we checked out the large Muttaburrasauras cast in concrete near the pub, we then followed some rougher black soil roads north to Hughenden. These black soil roads are notorious for becoming quickly impassable once any precipitation falls on them, although even through we were heading north into the Wet Season build up things were still pretty dry, although while overhead conditions were dry it was stinking hot and humid.
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Crossing the Great Dividing Range again, this time on the Drummond Range.
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North of Muttaburra we crossed some vast black soil plains.
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Hughenden provided an opportunity to kick the tires again and fuel up however we weren't staying, instead we followed the Kennedy Development Road north for a little longer to camp at the tiny Porcupine Gorge National Park. This was another spot that had somehow appeared on my radar, I've got a vague recollection of seeing it in a coffee table photographic book although that could be another Feral fact. After a night spent in the dusty camp Sam and I were up fairly early as we headed off for a day walk down into the gorge for which the national park is named. I'm not sure what this walk is like now days however back in these ye olde days the walk was pretty rough and ready, I remember that once we were down in the gorge any semblance of a track disappeared and we just made our was along the mostly dry riverbed towards the Pyramid. The Pyramid is a rock face that is shaped....you'll never guess this....like a Pyramid! While the Pyramid was nice another I was enjoying the pools of water more, checking out a couple of swimming holes before starting out climb out of the gorge in the now late morning heat.
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During our night at Porcupine Gorge National Park we had a furry visitor.
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The Pyramid in Porcupine Gorge.
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I think this look means can you hurry up and get out of this waterhole so we can get to Cairns and I can have a real shower...although maybe I could be wrong?
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Back in the air-conditioning we settled in and once again started tracking north(ish). We were now around a week into our trip and tonight we were heading for the bright lights of Cairns where we were staying at the nice Il Palazzo Hotel for a couple of nights (interestingly after a quick google search it appears that this hotel is still operating and still looks pretty sweet). With the thoughts of a air conditioned room, a washing machine and a pool in our immediate future we pushed on a bit this afternoon. The Kennedy Development Road was more dirt than bitumen back in those days however we still tracked along fairly easily, passing through The Lynd Junction we met the more substantial Kennedy Highway near the 40 Mile Scrub National Park. Once on the highway we climbed up onto the Atherton Tableland and then dropped down the long and sometimes steep descent off the Great Dividing Range to emerge on the coastal flats at Gordonvale, less than an hour later we were rinsing the red dust off us in the shower and life had taken a very comfortable turn.
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The view from our balcony in Cairns, we were around a block from the water.
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The ocean swimming in Cairns is a non event so we headed north towards Ellis Beach to swim.
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After enjoying a few very nice days relaxing in Cairns and enjoying a few of the more touristy attractions we packed up the Troopie again and resumed our journey north. Instead of heading up to Cooktown via the sealed inland route we decided to follow the coast as much as possible. Crossing the Daintree River on ferry it suddenly felt like our little adventure had ramped up a bit as we headed up through Cape Tribulation. Just after passing through Cape Tribulation the bitumen ran out as we continued to follow the controversial Bloomfield Track north, this track was bulldozed through the rainforest in the early 1980's despite fierce resistance from environmental groups at the time. This is another of those issues where I sometimes feel a little conflicted, while I'd have preferred that the track didn't go through should that mean that I don't drive it ten years later... I'm not sure, although obviously you see which way I went here. Actually a lot of progress comes with the same conundrum, guided walks, new tracks and infrastructure on public land, fossil fuelled power and even our existence on the continent are among other things all provide me reason to ponder....yes, maybe I think too much!:)
The Bloomfield Track was a pretty good drive today as the red clay was pretty well dry, the track features some pretty steep climbs and descents as well as a few creek crossings so it would pay to have a few skills and a 4wd to head up here (at least that was the case back in 1997). Continuing on we crossed the concrete causeway over the Bloomfield River without even getting the wheels wet and continued on to check out Black Mountain (Kalkajaka) National Park. Black Mountain is a very unusual sight, the mountain consists of thousands a blackish granite boulders left over after the softer rock around them has eroded over the years. Cooktown came and went after a stop at the bakery and a drive up to Grassy Hill Lookout to check out the stunning view down over Coral Sea. Leaving Cooktown we were quickly back on the rough red dirt again as we followed the Battle Camp Road west into Lakefield (Rinyirru) National Park before tuning north towards the ranger station at New Laura. Being fairly late in the season we found the ranger station deserted this afternoon so we pushed on a bit longer to camp for the night high up on the banks of the Hann River. And I'll emphasis high up, as when we arrived and I walked a few metres down to check out the river I disturbed a fair sized Saltwater Crocodile basking in the shallow - both me and the croc quickly retreating to safer ground!
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Black Mountain National Park.
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The view from Grassy Hill in Cooktown.
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The Endeavour River comes in from the left and I'm thinking that this is Endeavour Bay, both named after a certain English gentleman's boat, Cook crashed his boat on the reef and then had to run it aground here to repair it.
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The view from our camp above the Hann River. When we arrived here I came face to snout with a fairly large Saltwater Crocodile, the crocodile spent the rest of the day watching us from just under the water halfway across the river.
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Sunset from our camp in Lakefield National Park, thank god my cameras have got better over the years!
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Leaving our quiet camp early next morning we continued our journey towards Cape York. Initially this morning we headed west, still passing through the huge Lakefield National Park. After stopping to check out a couple of nice billabongs....and keeping a fair way from the edge of the water...we came out on the Peninsula Development Road at the Musgrave Roadhouse. I'm not sure what it's like now however back in '97 the Peninsula Development Road was mostly dirt although to be fair it was a pretty good dirt road compared to most of the other dirt roads in far North Queensland. Heading north from Musgrave Roadhouse the Peninsula Development Road climbed over the Bamboo Range (the Great Dividing Range) before passing through Coen where we avoided the bright lights of the Sexchange Hotel (Google it) before continuing on to Archer River. The Archer River Roadhouse provided our days culinary highlight as we devoured a huge Archer Burger each, yes I certainly wasn't getting any thinner on this trip. After our late lunch we continued north the road getting a bit rougher when the Peninsula Development Road veered away west towards Weipa. After avoiding the Weipa side trip Sam and I continued north for another couple of hours corrugations to eventually arrive at the Wenlock River at the Moreton Telegraph Station. Finding the river bank deserted we set up camp under some trees that gave us a bit of respite from the stinking hot tropical sun while at the same time allowing for easy and frequent access to the crystal clear river.
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Lakefield National Park... it'd pay to not get too close to the water here.
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Heading north on the Peninsula Development Road.
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The Dirt.
Now it's important to remember that these are recollections from almost 25 years ago so things have no doubt changed a little up north. What I do remember from this section of the trip though was the kilometres and kilometres of driving, zig zagging our way further up into North Queensland and being virtually on our own, we could drive for hours sometimes without seeing another vehicle. Another memory was arriving on the coast near Cairns from the west, it seemed that one minute we were in parched savannah country and the next we were driving through a lush, green, tropical rainforest - the contrast was stark. Blackdown Tableland National Park was pretty rough and ready on this visit with not much in the way of visitor facilities and a rough dirt road to follow all the way from the Capricorn Highway. Porcupine Gorge National Park was also pretty basic but really we only needed a bare patch of dirt. The Bloomfield Track was steep in a couple of spots but generally fairly easy. Lakefield National Park is now named Rinyirru National Park and that was where the roads started to get fairly rough on our trip. Lakefield National Park was pretty well deserted on this visit, I'm guessing that we only saw a handful of other people on our time there. Our camp on the Wenlock River was an informal bush set up, I'm thinking that there may have been a more formal set up at the Moreton Telegraph Station which is just up above the river - although once again that's a Feral fact. Oh yeah, like I mentioned above we stayed at the
Il Palazzo Boutique Hotel and it provided a great spot to re-group before heading up the cape. We mostly used Hema paper maps on this trip.
Relevant Posts.
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Our camp spot on the Wenlock River had the two things we wanted - shade and easy access to the water.
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