Cape York Report August 2012

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

There were a few plaques such as this at the tip glued to rocks in memory of loved ones. I'd say family members & friends scattered their ashes at the tip for them as well. That would certainly add a whole new dimension to the trip with a different sense of purpose. The main thing would be to enjoy yourselves along the way. You'd owe it to your extra passenger at the very least.



A strong glue would have to be used because you could see where the previous wet season washed one of the plaques off.

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

The most weird thing is.... You come all this way to see and experience the tip of Australia, get some pictures taken there quickly, hang around for a few minutes and then do a U turn and head back. Some people travel so far, from Victoria, Tassie, South Australia and WA. Go all that way, reach the tip, then turn around and head back shortly after you get there. We just made sure we had to thoroughly enjoy our trip home. But the experiences on the way up and back are the real enjoyment. Reaching the very tip is just the icing on the cake. We walked back to our cars and drove them onto the beach to celebrate.

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

We then stopped in at the Croc Tent which comes highly recommended. The dude who works there is a dead ringer for the rugby league player Justin Hodges, but with lighter coloured skin. He was so knowledgeable and eager to talk about the history of the place if you asked, in which case I did. I had a chat to him about Frank Jardine and the Lockerbie ruins across the road which was the homestead originally established by Frank Jardine during the late 1800's. There's not much left there now though. He would've talked all day about him if I let him. I also found out that his family are the only Lockerbie population which has 3 people including their young son, in the dry season.

[TimA Member Find all posts View Profile Close TimA]

Great report Brett,

You documented the trip extremely well, provided great photos and it sounded like you had a sensational trip. It also sounds like you planned it very, very well. Did you regret not checking out and considering Nolans? I have book marked this as a reference site as it is so comprehensive.

The OTT is on my wish list, together with the Kimberley (which is starting to get traction but about 3-4 years away). Being from Vic, it is soooooooooooo far away and takes 2 weeks to get there and back without even starting or seeing anything. But we do have the High Country .

The main thing is to get out there.


Tim

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

Hi TimA,

I haven't finished the report just yet. Our trip back through the Cape was as good as coming up. We also stayed on the northern bank of the Jardine River which was one of my favourite camping spots on the whole trip, Nolans, Dulhunty and 12 Mile Waterhole Lakefield NP were also highlights. The two night stay we spent in Lakefield NP was a spur of the moment decision and we're so glad we stayed there. It's a magical place that has so much to offer. If you wanna see crocs in the wild stay at one of the many waterholes on offer in Lakefield. It's such a great place & I'd love to go back there to stay at more of the waterholes over the period of a few weeks. There's plenty of more pics to come and more stories to tell. The trip report is wrapping up but I'm just letting you know there is more to come

I'd also like to go to the Kimberley some day. We did the Cape trip in 22 days from door to door and managed to re-structure the itinerary on the way back for the better. We traveled some longer distances which freed up more time for 2 night stays to really unwind and get so much more out of a location. I'd allow 6 weeks as a bare minimum for the Kimberley, but would be better done over 8 weeks. I'll start planning it slowly very soon so it's well researched like my Cape trip was. I'd probably head up through the Savannah Way across northern Australia and come back via the Tanami Track and the Simpson Desert crossing. It'd be an epic trip, but one done properly since the Kimberley is so far away. I might have to put in for my holidays now to give the boss some time to get used to the fact I'd be gone for 2 months.

Stay tuned for the wrap up of the Cape York trip report. Not long to go now.

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

After visiting the Croc Tent, buying some souvenirs and having an interesting chat to Justin Hodges's twin brother, we then went to look at some of the WW2 plane wrecks.

We used the good old Cape York Hema map to locate them. The first was the DC3 wreck.
We had to drive a narrow track for a bit to get to this site. It would've been difficult to find because without a road leading to it back then the plane would've been difficult to find in the thick scrub.
On both sides of the track in parts leading to the plane wreck were hundreds of disposed 44 gallon fuel drums dumped by the army and or air force. The drums mostly had big rust holes in them or were rusted straight through after sitting in the bush for nearly 70 years. Most of them were standing upright in large numbers together with the odd ones here and there scattered further out in the bush in smaller numbers or singularly. It was quite a sight and the process of dumping them once the war was over and it was time for the soldiers to return home would've been a lengthy exercise. We were so in awe of this we didn't even think to take photos of them, but managed to get a picture of one of them standing on its own just before making our way back to the main road.

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

The crash site certainly snatches the words out of your mouth and invokes silence. We walked around it 360 degrees and very little was said the whole time. It would've been a very lonely place to die for these men out here in 1945. Most of the wreckage remains.

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

We then headed to the Bristol Beaufort wreck.

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

We tried to find a 3rd wreck that we thought was further on down the track but the vegetation closed in on the track too much to the point it was causing bush pin striping and the track just seemed to keep going on and on after already following it for a while, so we turned around. There were some random tight turns in the track where the dust would catch you on the other side of the turn and drift in through the open windows before I could wind them up... Bugger! It was 2:10pm and a nice & hot 32 degrees.

In one place there was a fallen tree that was suspended in two other trees. We did see this a few times elsewhere in the Cape but not this up close and personal.

We returned to Seisia for our 2nd night's stay before making our way to the much anticipated Jardine River campgrounds on the north bank the next morning.

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

The next morning we left Seisia and reached the campgrounds on the northern bank of the Jardine at 11:20am. The drive was a fairly quick one and only took a little over an hour to get to the campgrounds. There were 6 campsites and we were allocated site# 4 when we pre-booked online. Only the most easterly site was numbered. It was marked with the number NJ6 (north Jardine 6). It took us a short while to work out where out site was due to the missing numbers and also the sites were spaced well apart and quite private. None of the other sites were occupied while we stayed there and we had the entire north bank area to ourselves. We quickly set-up camp and still had plenty of daylight to enjoy this beautiful spot. It was very hot around here due to the light coloured sand reflecting a lot of heat.

Campsite# 6 had this old hut that was still holding up strong. There were a few small rust holes in the roof but would make a great shelter for both you and the snakes.

I highly recommend at least one night's camping to be allocated for the northern bank of the beautiful Jardine River. We were practically level with the river on the northern side, but the campsite was a fair way back from the water due to a large protruding soft sand bank which extended from our campsite out to the water for approx 40 meters. The sandbank was so nice to look at and improved the campsite 100%. Though as tempting as it would be I wouldn't drive a car onto it because it was some of the softest sand I'd ever walked on. The sand was white, fine, very dry and hard work to walk on. We could see where 4wd's had been on it and it looked like they spent some time trying to recover the vehicles due to the heavily dug out sections here and there and you could tell a 4wd had been bogged badly in those spots. The 4 wheel spaced deep, wide dug out holes were a bit of a giveaway.

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

We could see one of the slightly exposed campsites on the southern bank with somebody's dark blue singlet hanging from the branch of a tree left behind by the previous campers. All the southern sites had a vertical wall of river bank about 3 meters high. We did see a couple of 4wds come and park right near the bank of that campsite and then leave after about 10 minutes of looking around on foot. I'd say they made their way all up the Tele track from Nolan's to check out the river before making their way to the barge.

The river was quite shallow at between 1 and 2ft deep all the way to the deeper channel on the other side where the water turned a deep green colour. Our eyes were peeled for crocs for ages but we never saw any. I did have to collect a few buckets of water from the bank for bucket showers but did so with a spotter standing behind me. The water's very clear all the way out to the channel so you do have visibility on your side in a large wide arc. But when it got to late afternoon all trips to the water were off because visibility was cut down due to the sun not penetrating into the water as well.

We went for a little stroll up river around the bend for a look which was good. The river was just beautiful and I would definitely come back to this camp spot again as it was my favourite so far. It was so quiet & relaxing. There were no other campers in site and the scenery was absolutely magnificent. You could just sit and watch the river for hours. There was enough around to explore for a bit too which was good.

The current had a bit of tow in the river as the tide was dropping and the water was running out to sea. There were a couple of exposed tree stumps on the other side that the water was rushing past and making a nice turbulent sound. The rest of the day stayed hot and dragged on forever which was just the way I liked it. This to me was far north Qld paradise right here. It actually seemed like we stayed longer than just one night. I could easily spend days here and the place would not lose its appeal at all.

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

A bit later on in the day me and my friend decided to collect some firewood for our first campfire on the trip so far. There was plenty of it around that was for sure, all dead and dry. And a few hours after that I saw the most colourful sunset I'd ever seen. I'm not a sunset kind of person and really don't have time for them, but the colours were magnificent and they stayed rich for a good half an hour. The other end of the sky turned to a deep rich darker shade of blue.

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

Top report Brett, good to see you made it all the way up and back without any mishap, (unlike myself), because of that we miss out seeing alot more then we did, but there is always a next time. Look forward to reading your trip back from the top and seeing those excellent photos.

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

Thanks Derek.

The next morning we regretfully had to leave this spot, but it was more than made up for by the fact we were going to Nolans to spend the night.
We couldn't wait! Me and my friend were telling the girls stories about it the whole time and the time had come for them to see it for themselves.

We crossed the Jardine River again and made our way south for a short distance and turned left down the track that would lead us to the campsites on the northern bank of Nolans. The below photos are of the track from the PDR to the northern side of Nolans.

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

The Nolans Chapter:

When we first arrived at Nolans the whole place was a massive car park. The little bit of track on the north side of the crossing had cars parked on it all the way down to the water. The entire donut shaped clearing where you can camp on the fringes was full of 4wds and 4wds with trailers attached. Half of them had their motors running but were unattended. It amazed me how they fitted all their cars in there. I didn't know if they had just spent the night or just crossed Nolan's as one huge group, or if they were a collective of groups that caught up to each other due to the difficult crossing. If most of them just crossed that morning, then the first car would've crossed hours ago because we were about to see how slow going it was with another group about to drive through Nolans. I walked close to two of the cars and they had the smell of hot wet engines. We saw a nice looking black 90 series Prado in the donut car park as well who just did the crossing and had a quick chat to him. He showed us by holding his hand up next to bonnet height to indicate the water depth. But thankfully he got through okay. His engine was still running and he was happy.

The cars all started leaving one by one until there was enough room to drive in and nab a good camp spot. There were small clearings in the bush on the outside of the donut ring where you could back a car into and pitch a tent or even set-up a rooftop tent and side awning like me friend did. But there was too much going on in the actual crossing right now to miss by setting up camp straight away. We parked the cars quickly to save our spots and rushed over to the water to see the tag along tour guide about to get bogged in Nolan's.