Cape York Day 4

So today I was up early as I had pre arranged to meet a fellow swagger, Sol (myswag forum). He lives in Tully, which we will pass today, but as Murphy’s law is everywhere, he has to go to Townsville today, so he said he would stop into camp at about 6:30am. I got up at 6ish and got a coffee going.  I woke Lyndall about 20 past and we had some breakfast, before we begin to pack up the trailer. Sol sent me a message through the forum with his ph number, so at about 7:30 I called Sol, turns out he is running late, not that I noticed, as he got tied up and had to wait for a some trains also.  So we made plans that I will hit the rd and when he sees us he will flash his lights and hang out the window like an idiot.

We hit the road and without a doubt 20min later Sol is a man of his word. I hit the brakes and pull off the side of the Bruce highway, and before long a black commodore is pulling up behind, lucky it’s Sol and not the cops. We have a chat on the side of the road for a bit, trying not to get blown away when the b-doubles going past at 100pkh.

Not long after we get going again, good to meet you Sol, hope you enjoy the Blog. When we get to Ingham we pull in to top up with fuel.

Today’s destination is somewhere north of cairns. About 5 hours from our start point so it is a day that we can slow down a bit and take in some scenery.  We make it to Cardwell this morning, which was our original destination for yesterday. We stop at the beach front and get out to stretch some legs. There is a coffee van here so we get coffee’s and have a walk along the beach. You know your in Nth Qld when the sign at the beach says “Warning Achtung”. Now, I’m not sure yet what an Achtung is, but there is just as many of them as there are crocodiles, cause they are on the same sign.  When I see one I will get a photo to share. Bathroom stop and coffee we hit the road.

When we get to Tully, we pull in to the big Gumboot for a look. Tully is known for record rainfall, and is a town that measures its rainfall in metres not millimetres.

After this stop we continue north, “‘again”‘ ( best said in forest gump voice) and decide that today cairns would be our lunch stop and we will find a dog beach for the dogs to run on. So off to holloways beach it is. Looking at the warning signs here, you have to be wary of marine stingers and crocodiles (an off leash dog beach with crocodiles ? lucky the dogs can’t read!) Lucky no Achtung’s so we let the dogs off the lead for a run.

It is pretty quite here which is good and we take the dogs for a short walk before making some lunch.  After lunch we take them for another walk before moving on. We decide that we might make port Douglas our destination tonight so head that way.

The drive from cairns to Port Douglas, is certainly one to just slow down and enjoy. The road is very narrow and windy but, it runs right on the edge of the coast. The water in North Qld is absolutly stunning and is something that most people think they need to go to Fiji, Thailand or Bali to see, but it’s here in our own backyard. The drive here reminds me of our last overseas holiday to hawaii, where is some spots the waves are almost crashing on to the bitumin. It has the same feel about it along this stretch off road. Soon enough we make it to Port Douglas.

 There is one van park there that take pets, so we find it and pull up out the front. It turns out that like other places in port doulas it has big ” no vacancy” signs up. Oh well off to find somewhere else. We ring a van park at newell beach to find that they are full also, mmmm bugger ok thinking caps on. There is only a few options when you are travelling with dogs so, the next ph call was to a van park in Mossman, they have sites available in unpowered, which is all we need, so off we go. As we have had bad experience with van parks in the past, I ask Lyndall to look up the number of the Daintree van park and call them to check availability. They have some sites also.  About 15mins later we get to Mossman, and check out our site. Now I don’t know what the site at the Daintree was like but, for $30 at Mossman, shoved into a corner, on the main highway, I decided I would take a chance.

We continue on to the Riverview Daintree village van park, and check in. As this is our last option, due to the time of day and it is the last place before we cross the ferry, we took what they had.

The camp ground is small, and is already fairly packed in, but we squeeze our trailer between a ute with a roof top tent and a single tent on the ground, with turns out to be a family of 4 from holland, cycling around Qld.

Once we set up the trailer we realise that from our bed we have a view of the Daintree river and sunset, our site is the closest spot they have to the river, so very happy with that!  Not a truck in sight and although we are in tight, everyone is friendly and we have a chin wag and a beer, and for $10 per person a night it is 1000 times better than the Mossman place.

When Lyndall checked us in the owner asked if we wanted to do a croc cruise, Lyndall mentioned we had dogs, and they said, that’s fine take them with you. As tonight was going to be an overnighter we will have a think about it and decide in the morning..Dinner tonight is lentils, beans, crushed tomatoes and spaghetti, maybe some thing else in there, but as with all our meals for this trip, quick,cheap,easy and mainly out of a can and surprisingly not bad either. Another day over and we retire to bed.