Sunrise, Sleepy Head, The long way round and a Cloud of Feathers - Thursday 20th September

Moving day again and time to leave the "luxury" of the Safari Tent. I wanted to see a sunrise over the ocean. As all sunrises in WA are over the hills and sunsets over the ocean I set the alarm to get up at 6:00am and head for the beach to watch the sunrise. Trish had decided that sleep was more important as you will see from her photo. It turned out a few others had the same idea as I headed down towards the beach with the cool of the mountains putting a slight chill in the air but as I approached the edge of the rain forest and the coconut palms I could feel a beautiful warm breeze coming off the ocean.

After taking up a seat on a low coconut palm it was time to wait for the sun to appear over the horizon. Conditions were perfect, scattered cloud, tide out so that the reef was visible and little rock pools to reflect the light and then the final touch, a bulk carrier moving across the horizon toward the rising sun. Having enjoyed the beautiful colours and taken several photos I headed back up to see how sleeping beauty was going. All I could see was a nose sticking out from under the blankets and a peacefully sleeping wife.

With 340km to travel and no tent to pack up we prepared to leave. Cooktown was only 100km away up the Bloomfield Track but we were going the long way around sticking to the bitumen. The GPS was set for a little detour into the Village of Daintree. Trish has been on a quest to find a cloth patch for her jacket and it has to be a Blue Ulysses Butterfly and of course the more you want something then the harder it is to find. This is going to be a saga bigger that the Great Sarong Hunt. After a painstaking search of all the shops in Daintree with no success a relaxing coffee and a look at the local sights prepared us for the next part of the journey. I was able to add another "BIG" to my collection with a photo of the Big Barramundi in Daintree.

The long way around took us south through Mossman and then up over the mountains to Mt Carbine where we had lunch. The countryside changed very quickly once over the mountains, from rain forest to very dry grasslands. I was happily following Trish when all of a sudden there was a massive cloud of feathers surrounding her bike and over the top came a very dead Whistling Kite. This was a rather large bird and not what you would want to hit with your body at 100kmp. I was expecting Trish to pull over but she continued on, being unable to contact her via the Bluetooth and it appeared that she was ok, we continued on to Palmer River for a break.

It turned out that the bird hit the side of her screen then bounced off the left mirror loosening it. The screen and mirror came through virtually unscathed but best of all Trish was unaffected. The rest of the ride into Cooktown was on great roads and beautiful scenery including the very unusual Black Mountains.

With the tent set up, the town explored and groceries purchased it was time for tea in the excellent camp kitchen. Lovey tea followed by a chat with a couple of German guys then a bit of a downer when I spotted a dark shadowy figure dash out of our tent. Trish had only been there minutes before and luckily he got scared off when he spotted me. There were only small signs of his hurried attempts to search through our belongings before being disturbed. We have always been very diligent about locking away our valuables and always putting a ziplock on our tent when we go away. With the camp kitchen being close was had not put on a ziplock so we were luck to disturb him early.

All's well that ends well but it reminds us that there are low life around!

Early riser Dave