Friday 27th August. Eliot Falls to Punsand Bay – 132km’s.
It was only a short journey up the OTT and along the development road either side of the ferry ride across the Jardine River until we reached our next and final camp before the tip of Cape York, so we were all looking forward to a nice easy day. A couple of km’s up the track we hit Sam’s Creek, which required rock crawling over an S-bend route through deep pot holes of water and underbody crunching lumps of stone. Both Steve and I managed to remodel our cars’ left-hand Side-steps into a fetching curve, which is sure to add to the resale value considerably. About half way through I recalled a passage from one of our Cape York guides; “...the Old Telegraph Track is not recommended for vehicles towing trailers above Eliot Falls due to the numerous difficult creek crossings and challenging terrain”. One more deep-ish creek crossing (navigated with much less damage – definitely getting eh hang of this now) and we were back on the development road, cruising northwards and only a few km’s away from the tip. It had been a hard few days, with lots of hard driving and plenty of adrenaline pumping moments, but we were nearly there and feeling very good about it. Rolling along, a plume of red dust bellowing out behind us and ABBA playing loudly on the stereo I had a strange urge to climb onto the roof wearing a flowing taffeta frock... I didn’t though.
Saturday 28th August. Punsand Bay – KM’s none!
We are spending 3 or 4 nights at Punsand Bay. We’ve got a pool, showers and a bar. Happy. Our camp is right on the beach so we wake up with an view of the beach and the beautiful ocean (beautiful, but somewhat torturous as the temperature is mid 30’s and the aquamarine water is soooo inviting... except for the crocs and the stingers...) The kids happily amused themselves for 20 hours or so playing sand wars and digging to the earths core.
Gary and I realigned the axel on the trailer this morning and replaced all the bearings. (Clearly it was Gary’s expertise that made this possible. I was just the grease monkey)
Sunday 29th August. The Tip!
Drove the 12km’s or so from Punsand bay to the tip of Cape York. We went late in the day and had the whole place to ourselves (often there is a long queue waiting for their photo opportunity next to the sign. Being there was actually more pleasant than I had expected. There were fantastic views along the beach and over towards PNG. It was a nice little walk up there too. We hung around until the light was starting to fade and then headed back along the rough dirt track...
About half way back as we dropped down a bit of a ledge, I heard a nasty crunch. A couple of hundred metres later we had to stop as we had picked up a 2 metre long branch, 20cm’s thick that had wedged itself up between a cross brace and the exhaust. No amount of pushing and pulling would shift it, and so scrambling around in the dark, we tied a snatch strap on and using another vehicle, pulled the thing out. Good. On our way again. We jumped back in the car, eager to get home before it was completely dark,, turned the ignition. Click. Click. Dead starter motor. Bugger.
In the end we towed the car to clutch start it, and then limped back to camp. As if we hadn’t had enough excitement for one day, as I drove into camp, a two metre long snake slithered right past the site. We all jumped out of the car (!?!) to take a closer look. Elliot’s Reptile Book paid for itself when we were able to quickly identify that it was a non-venomous Black Headed Python (in fact the kids have clearly memorised every snake in the book as they were able to identify it from 10 metres away in the dark...
So, to cut a long story short, that is how, the next day I ended up sitting in Cape York Spares and Repairs, which is an incredible place in itself filled with rusting old vehicles and parts for every vehicle know to man (apart from a small brush for the solenoid of a 2001 Toyota Prado) for four hours getting my starter motor patched up so we can hopefully make it down to Cairns for a replacement... fingers crossed...
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