Making it to The Tip

Date of Adventure 22 October 2024

I made it to the northernmost point in Australia. The last week of travel has been pretty interesting. I’ve camped in a variety of places. Some relatively empty State Park campgrounds, a few of the roadhouses along the road to get up here. I thought that the road would be worse than it is. Lots of corrugations and red dirt but very little gnarly stuff.

Been talking to some Aussies lately and there’s a strange semantic problem. First, lots of places in Australia are going back to their Aboriginal names. So the tip is now Pajinka. But the really interesting one is that people in the know, refer to the very northernmost point as “The Tip”. But in Australian slang a garbage dump is a tip. It’s where you tip your stuff off. So when I tell people that I’ve just returned from the tip some look at me like I’m crazy…”Why the hell do you want to go to the dump??”

When I started writing this I was camped at Loyalty Beach Campground.

It’s pretty empty because the season for this area is really over and everyone has gone home. The restaurant is pretty good. On Sundays they have a fish and chips special and it seems that quite a few folks come from the local area. It was definitely worth going for dinner.

After going to the tip and hiking out to the sign. ( It’s a pretty easy hike across a rocky area.) I decided to go check out some WWII plane crashes. The northern tip of Australia is only 200 km from Papua New Guinea so this was a relatively active area during the Second World War. In fact my father, more or less, ended the war on a ship in Rabaul, New Guinea. So I was kind of interested in seeing some of the relics. I’ll just post a bunch of pictures. The airport is a kind of cool, small, one runway airport in approximately the same place where there was a WWII airport.

The first wreck was a Curtiss Warhawk fighter bomber. There is a significant amount of debris in a small area in the jungle.

Not far away is the crash of an Australian made bomber. I looked up this crash. It turns out that the plane took off and had some problems so they were trying to return and land. No one died in the crash.

On the road in to the Beaufort Bomber there’s the remains of a fuel dump from that time. Hundreds of metal 55 gallon drums left abandoned in the jungle. I don’t have any idea how the managed fuel in those days but obviously some of it was brought to the airport in drums. Somehow, I found this to be pretty interesting. I could imagine a bunch of 20 year old Aussies in uniform pants and no shirts rolling these drums around in the jungle and moving them up to the edge of the runway to fuel whatever planes were coming in. The Japanese had a relatively strong presence in New Guinea up until late in the war so it’s easy to understand why there was so much Australian and American activity around here. There were some pretty big airbases only 3-400 km south of here.

While out at the tip I talked to an Australian guy who has some kind of family history in Papua New Guinea. Maybe it is his grandmother who’s in Papua New Guinea. I don’t remember the details of that part of his story. He had just taken a small (5 meter) open boat across the straights to Papua New Guinea. He said that the trip was pretty rough because it was windy. But he was able to hop from island to island to make it all of the way across. That’s a significant adventure. He took his young daughter with him and one of his cousins who is probably 20 – 25 years old. Hard to imagine when you see these catamarans just anchored in the cove at the northern end.

The general area around the north of Cape York is quite beautiful and I'm really glad I made it up there. Maybe I should have spent a few more days. But I've been thinking that I've got to get south to avoid some of the heat. Onward!

The Peninsula Development Road (PDR)

Date of Event 19 October 2024

I’ve made it to pretty close to the tip of Cape York. The travel has gotten a lot more interesting and it’s time for a little discussion of the overall situation. It’s the very end of the season up here and that’s good news. Not many people on the road or people in the campgrounds. It’s getting hot and in less than a month the cyclone season will be starting up. My last post was at the Hann Crossing and stuff has happened since then. I spent several nights free camping by the river just north of Coen. It’s been a little hard to decide exactly where to camp. I’m trying to avoid major campgrounds so the first night I spent in a kind of pull off on the PDR rather than go into the Moreton Telegraph Station. The next day, when I pulled in, they weren’t all that friendly. It’s pretty clear that things are closing down. The guy cooking at the Archer River Roadhouse said that he would only be around for about 3 weeks because he had to get his caravan out of the area before rains started. I stopped at Archer River because it’s supposed to have fantastic burgers. It was pretty good but not that fantastic. I’ve been stopping at most of the Roadhouses and other points along the way.

My plan was to drive to the road that goes from the PDR down to Gunshot Creek and camp there. But I had a stroke of luck. At that intersection a Ranger was checking out his truck and I talked to him for 10 minutes or more. He told me that the campsites along the Old Telly were going to be kind of shitty…literally. Apparently, people don’t dig catholes and there’s lots of toilet paper hanging around. He said to go on to Fruitbat Falls and camp at Eliot Falls. He also said to spend time north of the Jardine River because it’s beautiful. So that’s what I did. Fruitbat Falls are famous and the road in is pretty simple.

Not sure why, but I decided not to swim in Fruitbat and then a bunch of guys showed up and kind of took my urge away. So I went on down the road to Eliot Falls. There is a bad spot at Scrubby Creek and I’ll try to put up the video of my return crossing below. Camped for 3 nights at Eliot. It’s a National Park campsite so you’ve got to get a permit. I didn’t realize that until I got there so I had to set up Starlink in the parking area to get internet to register. It’s a pretty good campground and because the real season is over it was sparsely populated. I managed to get in a couple of soaks in the creek.

While at Eliot, I spent a lot of time trying to learn something about WordPress as a way to write a better blog. I think I mentioned that I don’t like the way that Blogger allows me to mix text and photos or to resize the photos. So far I don’t think I’ve learned much. I don’t think WordPress is really that difficult but I really haven’t gotten there yet. So, I’ll continue this blog and try to learn more in the next couple of days.

Here's a video of crossing the creek at Stubby. I've got to learn how to narrate a lot better and edit a bit more but I'm just going to leave it. I was checking out the route when the two utes drove up and they went through first. It doesn't look too bad in the video but it was a little tough. I should have set a camera up on the other side and gotten footage of all three of us going through. Well, what the hell, it's a learning process. I still don't know what I'm doing here.

Basically that’s the end of my travelog for today. You’ll have to tune in later to see some of the interesting things I’ve noted in the last week. But here’s one that I found really curious. I’ve been driving on gravel, red dirt roads for a while now. In places they are prett corrugated. So, early on I decided to drop my tire pressure by a bit. I only dropped 10 psi from 45 to about 37. It did make a big difference. If the road was consistently corrugated I’d probably drop more pressure but there are places that are pretty smooth and then I’ll hit 10 or 20 km of tarmac.

Finally!!!

Date of Event: 12 October 2024

Before I start anything I want to say that I’m going to be using Australian data. In other words the metric system and their way of expressing stuff like dates. The main reason for this is that I’ve got to acquaint myself with the way things are done here. For the first bit I kept getting dates wrong and having to scratch out things I’d filled in on forms. Instead of the American date (10/12/2024) for the 12th of October I’ll be using 12/10/2024. You can figure out the rest of it.

I am finally driving on a route that is more like what I’d planned and thought about. I spent 2 nights on a farm outside of Cooktown. I’m not going to write much about Cooktown but I found it pretty interesting. It’s a small town and I guess it’s where Cook first landed in Australia and they had to repair their ship…the Endeavor. So everything around there is named after Cook or the Endeavor. It’s the first place the Europeans saw a kangaroo and there’s a reproduction of Cook’s journal in one of the downtown museums where he describes it. Pretty interesting. They describe it as mouse colored and about like a greyhound but walking like a hare. They got the name, kangaroo, from the word that the native people used.

I’d hoped to leave town by about 11:00. A trip to the hardware store, local Saturday market, grocery store, and petrol station took longer than I’d hoped so I didn’t get out until just after noon. The planned drive was to a campground (Hann Crossing) in Rinyirru (Lakefield) National Park. These kinds of campgrounds are cheap to free but often require advance booking online. No booking at the location. I’d made a booking for two nights, not knowing how good it would be or whether I’d want to stay. The online information said that a lot of the road is dirt and four wheel drive. Google told me about 3 hours drive time. So, I was prepared to finally start in on the overlanding.

The first 50 km or so was all tarmac and a good road heading up to Hope Vale. Then I turned off heading into the park. It was tarmac for a ways but soon turned to red dirt. There were water crossings but none of them were too deep or tricky.

At one point I was getting a little rattled around by the corrugations so I decided to stop and drop the tire pressures. I just dropped them by 10 psi and things got a lot better. I’ll have to do a quick blog one of these days about tire pressures and how I manage it.

My first stop was the Old Laura ruins. There are several old abandoned homesteads on this road. This one was finally closed down in the 40’s, I think.

There’s a bunch of interesting stuff still hanging around but the only denizen was a lone kangaroo.

Some of the homesteads had significant planting that was left and continues. There were a few remaining mango trees at Old Laura. BTW there is a New Laura and on the main PDR (Peninsula Development Road) there’s a just plain Laura, where there’s supposed to be some great rock art. I might make it over there on the way back down from the tip.

Next real stop was the Lakefield Ranger Base. This too is an old homestead but there are also some newer buildings and a Park Ranger station.

When I drove up there was a flock of birds pecking at the ground. If you were in NYC, you’d have said pigeons. But here in Oz it was a bunch of parrots. There are more different parrots down here than I’d ever imagined.

The drive was pretty interesting. Along the way I saw several really pretty billabongs with floating lilies and water fowl around the edges. I couldn’t get close enough to get good pictures of the birds.

This is pretty serious crocodile country. Both estuarine and fresh water. Where I camped is a little up river from the tidal flow but I’m being more than careful when I get close to any water. So far I haven’t seen any. Here’s what the Ranger Station had to say about it.

It’s been interesting how the vegetation has changed. Before Cooktown was serious rain forest but now I’m in a kind of savannah and I think it’ll be kind of like this all the way to the tip. Also, along the way there were lots of termite mounds. At first I wondered what they are but pretty quickly figured it out. In the first picture you can see how there are a lot of them in the field and then one up close.

Finally got to my campsite at the Hann River Crossing. It’s actually on the Kennedy River but it’s where Hann set up a crossing in a shallow section about a hundred and fifty years ago.

Finally, I’m trying to get caught up on writing blogs and it’s taking me a shitload more time than I’d anticipated. I need to figure out how to be more efficient.

I don’t really like the way some of this blog looks. Don’t ask me why and I don’t like the flexibility of adding pictures and text so I’m thinking of switching to a different blogging provider. Stay with me but you may see something sending you to a different link in the future.

Dream Walk (A Guided Tour)

Date of Event: 8 October 2024

This was another kind of touristy thing that I did on my way up the East Coast, heading for the Tip of Cape York. I decided to take the guided walk in the Mossman Gorge part of the Daintree Rain Forest. This is a guided walk, lead by an Aboriginal Guide from the local area. I wanted to do it to see what kinds of plants are in the area and other things that relate to the native history of the land.

The tour was well done and interesting but really not enough discussion of the detailed biology of the rain forest. This is supposedly the largest and oldest rainforest in the world. I was kinda hoping to learn a lot more details. The guide had a pretty good way of describing things and was, in fact, pretty interesting. Just not quite as personable or complete as I expected. The group was about a dozen or 15 and everyone kind of stayed in their little family clique. Realistically, I don’t have a lot to say about the tour itself but I’ll try to flash some pictures, videos, and maybe sounds of the tour.

One of the first things on the tour was a smoke ceremony. Here's what it looked like.

And here are a few pictures of what the rainforest looks like in different places.

One of the more interesting things on the tour was his description of how people painted their skin for different purposes.

I'm glad I did the walk, I'd just rather have learned more details about the biology of the rainforest.

The Great Barrier Reef

Date of Event: 3 October 2024

Driving the coast of Queensland presented a few problems and some opportunities. I’d decided early on to try to scuba dive on the Barrier Reef. It’s the biggest reef in the world and famous for a lot of reasons. It’s the longest reef in the world. It’s renowned for the colors. And the story is that it’s dying off (bleaching) at a fast rate.

It’s been an extremely long time since I did a scuba dive. At times, watching some of the scuba classes in Santa Fe, I thought about taking a refresher course but just never did it. When I made contact with a dive shop to dive here in Australia, they said I’d have to take a half day refresher…no surprise. Since scheduling and time was important, I took my refresher on Wednesday, 3 October so I could dive the next day. The refresher was pretty good, in a special pool that they have at the dive shop for teaching. I got in a half day with a couple of young kids who were getting certified so we had a kind of funny, mixed class. But, I did have some trouble maintaining neutral buoyancy. I really didn’t have enough weight. I’d forgotten how tough it can be when you can’t get down without having to work at it. No photos of the class but overall I was pretty pleased with it.

Thursday, we had to meet at 8:00 at the pier. Not a problem, (or as they asy down here; "No dramas") there is plenty of paid parking in the area. The boat is a pretty nice catamaran with a nice cabin and a couple of outdoor decks.

The weather was a little windy in the morning so the sea was just a bit rough. They had anti-nausea pills for sale and I decided to go for it even though I’ve sailed in lots worse weather. But once you get started…it’s all over. Taking a pill once you are seasick just doesn’t work. I picked a seat and ended up with a couple of newlyweds from New York.

I don’t know how many people were on the boat. Probably close to 75 passengers and a pretty significant crew. The passengers were in 3 different groups: Certified Divers, Divers doing a “resort” dive (these guys aren’t certified and are pretty restricted), and Snorkelers. I guess that there were about 30 certified divers so they split us into 4 groups, each one with a divemaster to lead the dive. They called them dive guides. I think the non-certified divers were about 4 to an instructor. Overall, it was well run and pretty smooth. Getting that many people in the water took a bit of logistics.

Once we got in, I had a bit of trouble. My weight belt kept slipping and even though I’d increased the number of weights, I had a hard time controlling my buoyancy. But after a while I got it.

It’s a spectacular reef. We didn’t go very deep. I think I stayed above 16 meters. The advantage of shallow dives is that there’s a lot more light so you can see more. But, because I had a lot of trouble at the beginning I used a lot of air. Usually when we’ve gone diving I surface with more air in my tank that the rest of the crew. But in this case I ran out early. So the divemaster made another diver who was low on air and me surface early. The rest of them must have gotten 10-15 minutes more.

The real bummer is that I had a lot of trouble with my left ear as I was surfacing. And when I got on the deck I thought I might have broken an eardrum. It wouldn’t be terribly surprising because I’ve done it before. So I talked to the chief dive guy and to my divemaster and decided not to do the second dive in the afternoon. Everyone was very helpful and sympathetic. Interestingly, the chief guy, Mario, is from Mendoza, Argentina so we talked a little about Argentina when he had a little spare time. I was disappointed that I couldn’t do the second dive. And that I had so much trouble with buoyancy. But I didn’t want to risk an ear infection or something that would really mess up the rest of my travels. They served a nice lunch and I had time to just sit around and enjoy the day. So, although a little disappointed, it wasn't a loss.

OK, that’s the story. But I will say that the coral is fantastic. Since the Barrier Reef is so large, obviously they aren’t going to take you to an area that’s dying off. And of all of the dives I’ve done, I think that we saw the biggest variety of small fish on the reef. We didn’t see anything very big. They said there was a possibility of reef sharks, manta rays, octopi, etc. But we didn’t see anything like that. There was a professional photographer who took pictures of everyone. Normally I wouldn’t buy the photos but in this case I decided to do it. Even though I was uneasy at the time he took my photos and so I look like shit. But he also includes a bunch of pictures that he took on the reef that day. Obviously, with a flash and a good camera he get’s pictures that are lots better than anything I would have taken.

That's the main story for this event. In the end. I was kind of disappointed but really glad I did it. And there’s a chance that I’ll be in this area again and can take another crack at it.