Cape York

 

With the busy streets of Mareeba fading into the distance, we steered north, toward Lakeland. At this intersection, you can go northwest to the Cape or northeast to Cooktown, it is also the point you access Lakefield National Park.

Needing camping permits to camp in the park, and knowing that it would be booked out for weeks ahead, we thought, maybe on the way back, Ned veered northwest and we were on our way.

As you get further north you pass through Laura, then Musgrave, no more than a roadhouse and the turn off to Pompuraaw community on the western side of the cape.

Then you get to Coen, a small town with fuel, a shop and a few streets with houses and not much else.The line up for fuel was 10 deep and as we didn’t really need any we went and topped up with water then were on our way.

Gradually, the once dirt track to the Cape is being bitumised, ever shortening stretches of dirt are being covered and you travel for some time on dirt and then long stretches of tar. The days of an isolated adventurous trek to the tip are numbered as the roads improve and more and more people make the trip.

Between Musgrave roadhouse and Coen is the turn off to Port Stewart, we weren't going to Port Stewart, but on the map, you cross a creek not far from the turn off, we were in need of a camp for the night, so went to check it out. What a lovely spot.

We turned up the creek bed just before the causeway and setup camp. Clear, fresh water burbled not far from our front door, parrots and galahs chatted and screeched at each other in the treetops. Stayed there a couple of days and enjoyed the solitude, even though another two campers camped up the creek a way, but not really in sight.

As we moved northward we thought the traffic would thin out, as it usually does on lonely outback roads, but, no, we were constantly being passed or passing others coming from the opposite direction. I kid you not, every 10 minuets there was another car, usually in a group of three or more, this we were not used to, and it only made us more determined to find camps like the one we had just left where we could at least have the illusion that we were alone.