Capt Billy Landing to Archer River Roadhouse, Queensland
More woes with Bill's Pathfinder. An interesting lunch stop at Bramwell station. Camping back at Archer River, and a yummy hamburger.
11:15am
The wind blew all night long, but despite the tent shaking, we slept well, and woke up around 6. We're certainly in 'camp time': go to bed a couple of hours after sunset, wake up around sunrise. We packed the sleeping bags and cots, and were just about to put away the tent when an intense squall came through, dumping quite a bit of rain in two minutes. Then it was gone. I can certainly see why they call these trade winds: they reliably blow at a good 20 to 30 knots for six months out of the year in this latitude, from the southeast. It's sure good for sailing, but for us, camping on the beach, it sucked. The whole group was quite relieved to get out of there--Captain Billy's Landing just wasn't a pleasant place.
About an hour out, back on the southern bypass road, Bill's Pathfinder had more problems. The left front strut (a McPherson strut, basically meaning the shock absorber is inside the coil spring) was the problem. The 13mm nut on the very top had worked its way loose, cutting into the bolt itself to the point that the bolt broke and the whole assembly failed. He was lucky that it didn't cut his brake line as well--Nissan did a crap job placing that brake line, putting it right next to the coil so that if the suspension fails the brake line will very likely be cut. Bill's was just abraded back to the shiny steel.
So Wayne, trusty mechanic, once again got out his bush welding gear and welded a bolt onto the top of the shock absorber, then remounted it. Bill reckons that bit by bit, he's slowly changing his Nissan Pathfinder into a Nissan Patrol. Fine for him, but remind me not to buy a Pathfinder and take it to Cape York!
5:05pm, Archer River Roadhouse
After two hours of bush repair, Bill's Pathfinder was roadworthy, and we were back on the road south.
We stopped at the Bramwell Station at the bottom of the Southern Bypass road for a bit of lunch. We'd heard on the way up that the previous owner, Theresa, had forfeited the property in a bank foreclosure, so we weren't at all sure what would be there. Surprise, surprise, there were new owners, Steve(?) and Wendy, who had just moved there three weeks before. They plan on running cattle again, and continuing the tourist operation, catering to passing Oka's and other groups heading up the Cape. The operation is pretty nice, with two large cabins (one food, one bar), a nice shaded eating area, and small cabins.
The operation they plan on doing there was interesting. Theresa is now 71, and hadn't run cattle on the property for several years--the watering troughs and fences were rather run down. The new owners had recently acquired the 30 year pastoral lease by outbidding National Parks--and they said, 'of course if National Parks got this they'd give it back to the traditional owners.' Land rights. It's a big touchy issue. The station is huge: 500 square miles, and if they were to fence it all it'd take 230km of fencing. They'll start out with 1000 head of cattle, running one head for every thirty acres to start.
The biggest problem they'll have in running the property, they said, was pig hunters. Seems like the folks from Weipa, miners they say, like going out into the bush with their guns and 4WDs and blowing away the feral pigs--but first, they burn off the land to flush out the pigs. It's a real big problem, where they can lose half their grazing land in a day due to someone wanting to kill a few pigs for sport. To combat the pig hunters, they carry guns, and while they won't shoot at people, they don't hesitate to take out their dogs. They reckon it's the only way... pig hunters don't hunt without dogs, and while they might get burned out for spite, the word will get around.
After that, we crawled along the corrugations to Wendlock River. Another traffic jam. There were ten or so cars along the bank, and a good dozen people milling about. The road improved dramatically after that, so that we were cruising at 80 to 90 km/h... and passing yet more cars, a convoy of five, then a convoy of ten motorcyclists, then another little convoy of three 4WDs, etc. etc. Cape York is remote but it's not isolated. It just takes a long time to drive here. We even passed an old Holden Kingswood station wagon.
We arrived at Archer River just after 4, planning to camp along the river, but it was very crowded, and not much room to even drive around the campsites. I was a bit disgusted that someone had spray painted "HHH 2002 ->" in pink florescent paint on a rock. Please, Australians, don't mess up your country with trivial graffiti that's nothing more than a one-night direction to a campsite. The campsite behind the roadhouse was nice and empty, though, so we set up and had a shower! I am clean!
Now I'd really like a beer... and an Archer burger. Yum!
Later that evening.
OK. We've done Cape York. Chris and I are just over it. We thought it would be more interesting than it is, but it's a long way for little payoff in our view. It's almost more of a checkbox--tick the checkbox to say you've done it. I'd regret it if we hadn't come, but I can't say I'll ever do this again. Next time, I'll save the wear and tear on the car and fly to Thursday Island. It is by far the most interesting part of this trip.
Weird Wildlife Sighting
Yet another blue kookaburra. So not that weird.