Travelling Past Time: 8 - Atherton Tablelands

Entry 8 Atherton Table Lands – Cooktown - 28/5 – 9/6/2019

We continued enjoying the Atherton Table Lands experience whilst waiting for our mail to be forwarded and our computer issues to be sorted before heading a bit north.

Our main computer was being assessed for a problem we had incurred with its operation. A phone call from the assessing technician revealed it was to be written off and we were credited $1000 towards a replacement. Ironically this notification came on the final expiry day of its extended warranty. The downside, we still incurred $850 costs for all the various non-transferrable programs we utilised on our computer, needing to pay extra to get an equivalent type of computer and not quivering at the cost of an extended warranty. It reiterated how reliant we are on our computers for our current lifestyles and how frustrating it can be when our computers play up.

New laptop seems to be operating correctly

During the period awaiting resolution of the above issues Steve had been assisting the Smicks with repairs on their speed boat. Once it was up and running the Smicks launched the boat from their front yard, cruising around the bend, (about 500 metres away as the crow flies,) collecting us from the waterfront of Norty’s residence for an early morning run. It was an exhilarating experience speeding across the calm lake surface.

Awaiting for Steve to push us off

Leaving our camp

We spent another enjoyable day at the Mareeba Field Day, wandering about looking at lots of agricultural machinery with a bonus of watching a tractor pull competition.

Parade

There was even a section for the kids

Increasing black smoke out the exhaust, see the bottom of the rear wheels bubbling from the strain.

We were hearing glowing reports about the nearby Herberton Historic Village with a day entry pass permitting up to a further two days entry. For us it was one of the more impressive historical museums we have spent time at which we completed over a two-day period.

It felt like walking around a township

Early sowing machine

A picture of Collins St Melbourne

Don't miss using rolls of film, just love our modern digital camera's

Steve thought his parents drove one of these

We remember these Stooges

A great setting in the village cafe

Interesting corrugated rolling machine

We both remembered our school class rooms looking similar to the below picture. Steve can remember having to read Dick & Dora readers.

Some interesting reading about John Deere Tractors when they were trying to establish their name brand, where they purchased the Waterloo Boy Tractor company and renamed those tractors as John Deere. The below pictures showing a small shed of tractors valued at one million dollars.

The future weather prediction was starting to look more promising for our north bound destination of Cooktown, so it was time to get ourselves ready for more exploration further afield. We spent a couple of days cleaning our tow tug, caravan, getting our washing up to date and Mary cooked up some future treats while she had a kitchen at her disposal. We cleaned up our holiday house which we noted to be much more involved than just dusting our caravan out. We did spend our last three nights socialising with the Smicks and spent a morning wandering around the wonderful Tolga markets.

Zucchini & banana muffins

Our first day travelling north we managed to travel about 65 kilometres before pulling up stumps for the day stopping at a free camp to the side of the road where we chilled, readjusting our bodies back to living in our little box home.

We liked our setting but didn't appreciate all the wiz-bang (vans with sliding doors) parking near us with a constant sound of doors opening and closing into the late hours

We travelled towards Cooktown along the Mulligan Highway, a good quality bitumen road inland from the coastal regions. It was a somewhat uninspiring section of road where we stopped at a couple of lookouts not stopping at the two roadhouses along this route.

Another unattended fire with kites flying about for any "snacks" appearing to escape the fire

With about 30 kilometres shy of Cooktown we deviated right travelling along the coastal route to visit the Lion’s Den, a location referred to on every publicity article for Cape Yorke Peninsula, our present location. The Lion’s Den is a “Pub,” with a structure comprising of a rambling tin shed. Like all other pubs its primary purpose was to extract money for the supply of alcohol. As we are not seduced by these type of premises, 10 minutes viewing time was all we needed and we continued a bit further along the road camping for a couple of nights in a peaceful rainforest setting near Rossville, away from the noisy pub environment.

Another great rainforest camping location

There was a great looking swimming location nearby

Cedar Bay National Park was adjacent to our camp property called Home Rule with a publicised walking track into the N.P. to a falls, called Home Rule Falls. We set off on this walk given as 45 minutes one way. As it transpired there were several dozen trees lying across the track, some you could get around, others you needed to climb over or under due to the dense forest. It was a nice setting amongst pristine rainforest but it was heads downward as we needed to watch where we were placing our feet due to a deteriorating track. Pictures attached.

Really another tree to climb!

At least we got to see a pretty butterfly

The last few hundred metres turned into a steep decent halting any further progress from Mary with Steve holding onto rocks lowering himself down till he had the falls insight. They were splendid waterfalls but the lack of maintenance over recent years on the walking track was a disappointment, with the whole walk close to 2 ½ hours for us to complete where we both ended up with dirty clothing and exhausted bodies.

The track got tougher and tougher

Leaving the caravan at Home Rule we ventured further south where we viewed Weary Bay and Wujal Wujal an aborigine community. We crossed the Bloomfield River and not long after that the bitumen road surface finished, with the Bloomfield Track for 4wd only over the next 32 kilometres to Cape Tribulation. For our safety we chose not to venture any further as we were yet to change our road tyres to a more robust all terrain tyre more suitable to off road conditions.

Aboriginals love their dogs as seen lying on the left side footpath

Rainforest growing on road edge leaving minimum room for on-coming vehicles

Bloomfield River mouth

It was time to get to Cooktown about a 35 km drive for the day. Along the way we did stop at Black Mountain lookout for some interesting rock viewing.

The mountains are covered in black boulders

We set camp at the local race course, a free camp for self-contained RV’S with a maximum stay of 3 nights permitted. Once we unattached the caravan our first stop was at the information centre which had a nice setting but not much in the way of tourist information other than brochures available on the display racks. The person representing the information centre did advise us we needed to look at the local authorities’ web sites to obtain answers to our questions which included a weekend of activities publicised for the following weekends re-enactment of Caption Cooks landing in Cooktown. We did look it up and there were over 30 different options for us to participate in, spread out over three days of planned celebrations and activities but the towns information centre was unable to provide any information about it.

For Cooktown we needed to make our own initiative for activities and sightseeing. Some of what we enjoyed, a walk onto Finch Bay showed it had similarities to the beach setting at Wilsons Promontory in Victoria. We didn’t stay long on the beach due to the sand blasting effect from strong winds. Grassy Hill lookout provided good nearby viewing of the ocean and Cooktown setting, even if we only had a cursory look due to the uncomfortable gale force winds. It seems Cooktown and nearby areas are buffeted by strong south easterly winds this time of the year. The proposed future weather forecast for up to 2 mm of rain each day over the coming week was grossly incorrect with constant showers damping our experience. The first two days each recording around 25 mm of rainfall. The wind and rain held off for an early morning market day experience with an enjoyable walk along the town’s esplanade viewing the sights. Our third day we woke to a bit of blue sky showing through the clouds, providing incentive to immediately get up and going, where we climbed Mt Cook to its first lookout, the top section was blanketed in cloud. We also walked nearby Keating’s Lagoon and viewed the cemetery. We pushed ourselves while the heavy showers were absent stopping for breakfast on our third day at 12.30 pm.