Leaving Cooktown Sunday 21st June

Sunday 21st June Leaving Cooktown
It was an earlier start today as we were heading for tip of Australia. As mentioned before we have heard some bizarre stories of what the road can be like. However after we had spoken to a very informative person named Mandy at the information centre in Cooktown we felt a little more confident about it all. She told us that when she was working in Seisia she would travel back down to Cooktown in a day, travelling at 100 + Kms and it would take her about 7 hours. Well now, we don’t think that we could do that but as we had also heard that the road had been recently been worked on (regraded) we knew we could give it a go. Left the camp at 8 am and put into Tom Tom Coen as our destination. The calculation was that we could get there by 2.12pm the distance about 350 klms. So off we went heading for Lakeland all bitumen which we came up to Cooktown on where we turned to the North West and headed for Laura. Here there was being held the biannual Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival. We had heard about it and thought that we might stop by and have a look. The road was pretty well bitumen all the way except for some gravel parts which weren’t too bad. Laura contains Queensland most extensive Aboriginal rock art at Split Rock. UNESCO ranks this Quinkan region as one of the top ten art areas in the world. Aboriginal occupation here dates back over 37,000 years. The discovery of gold on the Palmer River brought thousands of miners from 1873 on the old coach from Cooktown to the goldfields. Regrettably conflict, separation and diseases decimated the Aboriginal people and their traditional way of life and the last thousand generations was lost. Now this rock art tells the stories of their past and was only recently rediscovered in the 1960’s. We intend to take a self guided walk to the Spilt Rock Art site on our return journey. From Laura the road became dirt and corrugated and we started to shake rattle and roll. We kept our speed up to 80 as advised and went for it. We soon got the hang of it and just kept going, now heading for the Hans River Roadhouse where we intended to stop for our cup of coffee and fill up with petrol. This Roadhouse was a welcome break and we stopped for a short break. The dirt road continued on though every now and again there was a few Kms of bitumen which we really appreciated. These are placed so traffic can have a chance to overtake slower moving traffic. We passed a few road trains of 50 metres + going in the opposite direction. The only things to do is to slow right down move over and stop as the dust they kick up appears as though you are in thick fog and you can’t see a thing until it all settles. Of course as always there are some lunatics even on these roads and we were passed a couple of times by big 4 wheel drives that must have been travelling at over 120klms. They must be mad as how they can see through the dust that we kick up to enable them to pass us, I just don’t know. All they can hope for is that no traffic is coming the other way.
We reached Coen and stopped for lunch. Many photo opportunities but as I hadn’t charged the camera battery I was unable to take any so will have to do it on our return trip. The road continued much as before with the bitumen breaks which we really looked forward to. Coen has a road house and also one of the original repeater stations from when they first constructed the telegraph road. We continued on the development road for the Archer River Roadhouse where we intended to stop for the night which meant that we were well and truly ahead of our original destination of Coen.
We arrived at 4pm filled up with petrol checked in and found that Manly v Raiders was on the TV! Thank God they were able to hang on and win as they very nearly threw it away by some stupid mistakes. It was interesting to see that it was raining in Brookvale especially as I was sitting in outside in the warm drinking a cold XXXX.Chatted to another couple who were there. Mike and Bridget and found out they were from Narrabeen.!They were going to Weipa first and then to the top end. We looked at the photo board they had set up in the roadhouse showing the results of cyclone Tracy that went through in 2006. Amazing to see tinnies tied up to the posts of the roadhouse when the Archer River flooded which resulted in them being isolated for many weeks.
Very tired it was time for bed by 9.30. There must have been about another 20 odd campers/trailers there, some were in tents and some were just sleeping in swag under an awning or in their car. We were doing well in our camper.
Chatted to Peter next to us who was running a generator giving him 240 ac power for his lights and cooking. He was also charging up his phone so I asked if he could give my camera battery a bit of a charge which he did until he turned everything off and turned in at 9pm as he had an early start! Actually the place was in darkness and silence by 10 pm which is usual in most of the camp sites we have been in.
The stars were brilliant and we spent some time gazing at them especially when all the generators had been turned off and there were no other lights and very quiet. It was just wonderful.