South

The car and trailer behaved well on the journey back to Cairns – so much so that we decided to take our time and travel back via a couple of spots on the west coast of the peninsula. Glad we did because Vrilya Beach was one of the nicest camps of the trip so far. Directions: Take a left 30km’s south of the Jardine River Ferry, along another 30km’s of corrugated track with the odd log bridge crossing, drop down on to the beach for another couple of km’s (if the tide is on your side), past the ship wreck and then floor the accelerator to get through the soft sand at the rear of the beach to a beautiful bush camping spot. (...I said floor the accelerator... Floor it!.. Whoops. Done it again. Beached As Bro). OK, so once both the cars that were towing anchors (sorry, trailers) behind them were snatched out of the soft sand we were able to spend a very relaxing afternoon and evening fishing on the stunning beach. The highlight for Daniel was catching his first ‘proper’ fish – a nice Golden Trevally – which he (air) kissed and released.

From our all too short stay at Vrilya, it was down to Weipa for some civilisation and supplies. At Weipa we said a sad goodbye to Steve, Jen, Phillip and Amanda, who were staying for a couple of days fishing before making their way back home. All of a sudden it dawned on us that the Cape York section of our trip was coming to an end. Nearly a month down already!

For the rest of us it was a quick overnighter at the Hann River Roadhouse, before heading down to a weekend of rest and relaxation in Port Douglas (though not before, in a surreal moment, we were stopped at 9am, a few Km’s south of Hann River by a couple of troopies full of Queensland’s finest, including a detective, for a Random Breath Test).