Driving back through Cairns (with our mail) was easy now as we knew our way around. We continued up the Captain Cook H’way & about 30K’s North the road started following the coastline, it was a very winding road, but every corner revealed beautiful scenes of beaches & headlands. It was slow going in Werarwee & when we came to Port Douglas we decided we would stop but it was all resorts & cafes & not at all pretty so, after lunch on the foreshore, we continued on to Mossman. Another very nice little town dedicated to the sugar cane industry. Another 20K’s up the road we came to Wonga Beach, with a caravan park on the beach, lots of palms & other trees, picturesque. As we booked in we were told, ‘Happy hour 5:00 PM., just behind the office’. We turned up to see, there were a few people there but by 5:30 there must have been 25-30 people, some from the park & some from the local community. It started breaking up around 6:30 & we had lots of chats about what to expect further North. A great end to the day.
Cape Tribulation was our next stop but when we had to pay $46.00 (return) just to catch the ferry across the Daintree River (about 10m wide) I strenuously objected, it was part of the road after all. So we turned round & headed to Daintree village, deep into the rainforest, fantastic. The village was full of tourist information places & cafes, the river & a small c’van park. After checking it out we headed off towards Cooktown, stopping at Mossman for m/tea. 2 hours later we were on the Peninsular Development Road, we saw a sign saying Weipa 702K’s, & it’s 90% gravel (Liz nearly had a fit), we’ll see what happens. We have stopped for the night at James Earl Lookout, 15K’s South of Lakeland (Cooktown to the right, gravel to the left), we have had showers since last night & it’s windy, but hey! What a view from the bedroom window.
On to Cooktown, on the way we decided to turn off on the ‘Bloomfield Track’ (a short cut from Cape Tribulation to Cooktown) & check out the Lion’s Den Pub at Helensville, a classic old place that’s been here since the early days then on to Bloomfield. This is a dirt road with lots of little creeks to cross, it was winding & hilly with lots of 1st & 2nd gear work & the scooter frame bottomed out heavily on one creek crossing. The sign does say 4WD but we know the track was washed away in the floods some 50K’s ahead so I assumed that to be the reason. Anyway we passed a delivery van & a semi (very squeazy) on the way so it can’t be too bad. After 20K’s we decided to turn round, I don’t think leaf suspension is the best for these roads so lets hope the other gravel roads are better. Anyway, on to Cooktown which is very historical, There is the Endeavour River where Cook repaired his ship, Statues & busts of Cook abound, plaques dedicated to interaction with the aboriginals, old pubs (they were great) & old buildings. While getting to know the locals with a beer after lunch, they asked us where we were heading next, when we said Cohen, heads started shaking everywhere. ‘Too rough’, ‘You’ll never make it without a 4WD’ , ‘why would you want to’, ‘There’s lots of creeks to cross’, ‘it hasn’t been repaired since the floods’, ‘forget it’, they all said. Well………. that’s food for thought.
We visited the museum which was a catholic monastery but was deserted during the 2nd world war & left to go to ruin. In the ‘60s it was taken over by the local council, restored & became the museum. Considering this building was built in the 1880s, the workmanship has to be seen. No cracks in the foundations or brickwork, walls perfectly straight, timber still in great condition, windows & doors still like new.
The history of this area is so interesting that we spent 2 hours looking through. Leaving the museum we were deluged by another ‘shower’ so we returned to Wherarwee for a change of clothes. Later on in the day we returned to the pub but it was very quiet. We checked the road up to the cape on the internet & found that the road to Laura was open to 4WD up to 5 ton & closed from there on.
As we left Cooktown we came upon a group of bikers who had just returned from the cape, after discussing conditions with them, they felt sure we could make it right to the cape. Libby said, it’s alright for them, they have dirt bikes. So we thought we would see for ourselves but after a few K’s along the road with the truck vibrating madly over all the corrugations we decided to turn back, it just wasn’t worth damaging the truck. We drove to Mt. Malloy & parked in a roadside stopover for the night.
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| Wonga Beach campground 1 |
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| Wonga Beach 2 |
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