We bolt from the group, see some sights around Cooktown, and then head towards civilization around Cairns.
The rest of the group got up at 6 and drove off at 7 to go bird watching. Not my cup of tea. We packed up and left with Bill and Sue and drove three hours to Cooktown.
Cooktown was neat, and worth spending some time in. It's where Captain Cook put in after gashing his ship HMS Endeavour on a reef along the coast. This was way back in 1770. There's an excellent museum in town that explains this, and some other things worth seeing as well. After that, Cooktown really got going with the 1870's gold rush to the Palmer River, which petered out after awhile but left some really interesting history. We walked around the cemetery and stared at some old graves. The Cook Shire council has done a great job with interpretive signs all around town, explaining the history of the place.
We also hit the botanic gardens, which are more or less defunct... but there's a great new Interpretation Center there that explains Cape York ecology, with exhibits on things like termite mounds, crocodiles, and characteristics of the 32 species of snakes that occur from Cooktown north--along with the snakes preserved in formaldehyde. This display helped me identify the snakes we say on the road up on the north part of the Cape. It appears that those two black snakes we saw mating were really fighting, not mating. Males of the black whip snake Demansia vestigiata, which is what I think those snakes were, are known to fight each other. There were also some nice watercolor paintings of plants of the area in the center's gallery--I was able to identify a few more unknown plants I've seen up the Cape.
Leaving town, we stopped at the Croc Shop... and while we didn't buy any trinkets, we did buy the book Paradise Found: A Cape York Adventure... and got it signed by the author, Linda Rowe, the owner of the shop! I'd seen this book around--the front cover is certainly eye-catching. It's a picture of the author in a bikini, holding a 303 rifle, with a crocodile at her feet. I'm pleased I held off buying it until I could get a signed copy!
By 2:00pm, we felt like we'd had our fill of Cooktown, and headed south towards Port Douglas. We weren't sure where we'd spend the night, but just having the freedom to go when we felt to was nice. We turned off the main road near Helenvale, visited the Lion's Den Hotel for a beer (good pub!), and then hit the Bloomfield Track towards Cape Tribulation... which was the worst road of the trip.
We'd been on some bad roads up the Cape... but the Bloomfield Track took the prize. It wasn't difficult to negotiate, it wasn't corrugated... it was just that it was so bloody deceptive. It's not a fast road, but you'd be cruising along at 50km/h or so, then BLAMMY a series of huge potholes would slow you to 10km/h in a hurry. Then they'd go away for a bit, and then just when you got your speed up BLAM they came back. That road sucked.
Cape Tribulation was a possible place to stay, but we had a real hard time deciding. All the places had names like "Cape Tribulation Rainforest Eco Tourist Lodge", and none of them appealed--from the outside, they appeared to be either rustic backpackers or upmarket resorts. Or possibly upmarket backpackers or rustic resorts. Whatever.
We pushed on, stopping briefly at a botanical walk near the Daintree River. That was neat; I saw what I thought was a cassowary chick on the track (fawn brown wings, darker neck and head, yellowish feet, about knee high), but no cassowary dad in tow. Then later on the road I saw two more chicks scampering into the bushes. Cassowaries are endangered in the area around Cairns, so I was thrilled to see them in the wild.
We then crossed the Daintree River on the ferry, and decided to stay in Mossman--a rural center that's not tourist oriented. The motel looked marginally OK, but the Exchange Hotel looked like it had more character. We got a basic room there with crappy beds--and a fresh barramundi burger in the pub. Easily the best barramundi I've ever had... sweet and tender. Yum!
Today we also went over Jan and Gerard's suggestion that we do the Kimberley on our own, and get out of the Great Divide tour. The Cape York trip was fine, but a Bill (of Bill and Sue) said, we were using the tag along tour for security, not for guidance... and we felt that we could do a better job guiding ourselves. There were a few things we certainly would have done differently. For starters, we would have done the overnight trip to Thursday Island, we felt there was more there to see than our really rushed trip. And we spent a day too long in Weipa as well, and the first day of the trip was on sealed roads and we could have done that on our own too. We also found that the Ron and Viv Moon book Cape York: An Adventurer's Guide was an indispensable reference--accurate and thorough, with great maps as well. We have their Kimberley book.
I think that this trip with Great Divide proved a few things: first, that we have the proper equipment, and the Landcruiser is capable of such a trip. But more importantly, it showed that there weren't any great difficulties in these trips with proper preparation and attitude, and I think we're both common sense enough to avoid getting into dicey situations. Also, surprisingly, Cape York is remote, but not isolated. There are plenty of people around, so we're not alone if we get into trouble. I think as long as we use common sense and stay to somewhat established tracks we'll do fine on our own in the Kimberley.
Weird Wildlife Sighting
The cassowary chicks in the forest! Cool. Didn't see their father, though. That would've been cooler.