Cape York Report August 2012

[Brett1979 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Brett1979]

Hahaha, sorry to disappoint but we had no guns. I'd feel sorry for those little piglets though if someone shot their mum. A few people do carry firearms up here though because we saw 3 fully grown pigs laying close together dead on the PDR just a couple of hours north of Laura. Who ever took them out had 3 or more guns trained on them from a distance and they were crack shots to kill them all with dead accuracy in the same vicinity without any getting away without the aid of semi-automatic weapons. So they must've had scopes on their rifles. The pigs were all dropped where they stood by the look of it and they hadn't been there for too long.
At Nolans Brook there were also numerous bullet holes in the Telstra Cable Xing sign. All of the same consistency and when looking at the back of the sign, the neatly bent metal on the exits of the holes were nothing other than that of bullets.

[Brett1979 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Brett1979]

As the epic trip report comes to a close, we were headed to Cooktown today via Battle Camp Rd and a great road it was I must say, to stay the night before traveling through the Daintree Rainforest for a relaxing 2 nights at Port Douglas, and then another relaxing 2 nights at Airlie Beach, before doing the 14 hour drive home from there. What a good way to wind down after an incredible trip. It was so bloody windy in Cooktown. The gusts got stronger and stronger in sets like waves getting bigger. It was ridiculous and we couldn't wait to leave the place.

But nearly an hour after leaving the waterhole we stopped in at this little gem.
The Old Laura Homestead.

[Brett1979 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Brett1979]

And this is the end. I hope you enjoyed the trip report.

[Mark from Brisbane Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mark from Brisbane]

Fantastic report mate, you spent hours typing ( I was pretty slack really)...very very enjoyable, especially for me having done this almost to a tee about the same time.

By the way Cooktown was blowing a gale for us as well.....the sad thing is the other people I was travelling with wanted 3 nights there, so we took a night out of Kalpowar (made it 1 night only) to add that extra night in....I could have had one night in Cooktown not three, once you see the James Cook Museum (which is well worth while) you have almost done the lot. And fair dinkum I thought my tent was going to blow away each night.....whilst it's a pretty spot I'd never waste my time going back for that reason.

The Daintree however was magnifcent, we had some time on the way up there and wish we'd had more.

Anyway congratulations, pleased I inspired you to write the report and it's been a pleasure reading it every few days.

PS: Loved the Pig stories...hilarious (especially the tree climbing part)

[derek11 Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close derek11]

Enjoyed reading your trip report Brett, glad it didnt end prematurely like mine did, i cant wait to go up there again and do/see some things we missed out on.

[MalcomM Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close MalcomM]

A most excellent and entertaining report.
Thanks

[netarch Member Find all posts View Profile Close netarch]

Wow thanks you for such a captivating and informative report. Definitely given me some ideas on what to do and what I need to take to get there.

Thanks

[Brett1979 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Brett1979]

This was our Cape York Trip itinary. We saw and did a lot in this amount of time, but ideally an extra week could be added. You could easily spend the entire dry season up in this region exploring if you had the time and funds to do so.

Saturday 4th August –Saturday 25th August 2012:
Day 1 (4th): Toowoomba to Rockhampton – 650km.
Day 2 (5th): Rockhampton to Innisfail – 980km.
Day 3 (6th): Innisfail to Archer River Roadhouse c’grounds - 740km (This leg took us 15hrs but could be done in 11-12hrs with minimal stopping). Has awesome burgers!
Day 4 (7th): Archer River RH to Bramwell Junction c’grounds – 165km
Day 5 (8th): Bramwell Junction c’grounds to Cockatoo Ck - allow 6-7hrs (Various private camp spots along banks)
Day 6/7 (9th & 10th): Cockatoo Ck to Twin/Elliot Falls – 33km, 3hrs (Nice swimming holes – 2 nights stay).
Day 8/9 (11th & 12th): Twin Falls to Seisia via Jardine River Ferry on bypass track – 95km.
Barge cost of close to $78 return and is supposed to cover bush camping costs north of the Jardine River also.
Can pay to camp at Seisia Holiday Park or Loyalty Beach which both overlook the islands of the Torres Strait.
Site seeing: Various plane wrecks . Cape York Helicopters offer a range of scenic flights from Seisa for anyone interested. High speed ferry service to Thursday Island also but this should be booked in advance.
Day 10 (13th): Seisia to Nth bank of Jardine River c’grounds (beautiful spot).
Day 11 (14th): Make way back south over the Jardine River early in the morning & take the bypass track to the north end of the OTT and camp at the northern side c’ground of Nolan’s Brook – 48km.
Day 12/13 (15th & 16th): Nolan’s Brook to Dulhunty River via PDR road (Great camp sites on both sides of river).
Day 14 (17th): Dulhunty River to Musgrave RH via G’shot bypass & PDR road.
Day 15/16 (18th & 19th): Musgrave RH to 12 Mile Waterhole - Lakefield NP (2 nights stay).
Day 17 (20th): Lakefield NP to Cooktown via Battle Camp Rd.
Day 18/19 (21st & 22nd): Cooktown to Port Douglas via Daintree Rainforest – 187km (2 nights stay).
Day 20/21 (23rd & 24th): Port Douglas to Airlie (2 nights stay)
Day 22 (25th): Arrive back home.

6500km approx in total.

[Mark from Brisbane Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mark from Brisbane]

Ours was a tad over 6500 as well...as a matter of interest how did you go with fuel...the 150 (Diesel) did 11.31 Litres per 100KM and considering we had the spare on the roof and a storage box on there as well I was very happy with that....but I do make an effort to stick to about 100KPH on the highway...our fuel was just on $1100.00 for the trip.

Our Simpson crossing last year (and the fun of a wet Oodnadatta Track) did more than that , we averaged about 12.40 for the entire trip in 2011...we did however have more weight on board with fuel / water, so I suppose that and the soft sand / wet track would have acounted for much of that extra.

I'll probably count on 12 litres per 100KM for our CSR trip in 2013, that will be almost 11,000 so I'll need to have about $2500 in the sky rocket for diesel for that one.

I usually get about 10.5 unloaded (country runs not around the city)....I am orginally from Moree (northern NSW) so get there fairly often...I think I know every pothole in the Toowoomba-Milmerran-Gundy-Moree road now!!

[Brett1979 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Brett1979]

I averaged somewhere around 16-17L + per 100km for the entire trip as I used a bit over 1000 litres of fuel. We sat on 90km/h all the way up & back on the bitumen highway which apparently uses less fuel than driving at 100km/h. Driving on the corrugations at 90-100km/h with 18 psi in the tyres made the engine work a little harder too to maintain the car at that speed.

[Davo150 Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Davo150]

Great trip report Brett1979 thank you for sharing your adventure with us.

[hawks667 Member Find all posts View Profile Close hawks667]

Great write up & pics.....

Nice to see a kitted out 90 series do the trip..Must do it with mine one day. Perhaps next year...

The pig story had me laughing. I hunt them with the Bow, so i would have loved it. They usually bugger off real quick when they get your scent, rare for one to have a go unless its protecting its young, you have provoked it or its just real cranky....but hey, better safe than sorry.....

[Brett1979 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Brett1979]

Thanks for the comment Hawks. I thoroughly enjoy driving the 90 series.

Some people couldn't believe how aggressive the pigs were either when I told them about our encounters as some of them hunted them in the past and know their general behavioh. They reckon they should've just bolted off once we approached. But these pigs didn't do that at all. They stood their ground and growled. If we took a couple of steps further forward it was game on. The way the big fella growled at us in close proximity a couple of times was more than a bit worrying. When we were on the move again I definitely grew eyes in the back of my head with all the long grass around. I guess they just had a bad day at work those pigs... Or were sick to death of the tourists haha. We went back to the campsite without our legs ripped open which is always a bonus

[JCG Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close JCG]

Great read Brett and I picked up some good tips as where to stay! I'm heading off up there on Sunday morning 01/09/2013 at 4:00am.

[Brett1979 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Brett1979]

Hi JCG,

You're off on your trip now, but thanks & you're welcome. I tried to keep in mind to make my report helpful for others that had never been to Cape York before and were planning the trip. I wish I was coming too... Have a great trip!!!