Friday, July 16, 2010 - Cape York

Day eleven in "The Cape" - Stef woke up with twenty-five mozzie bites over both hands while the mosquitoes preferred to nibble on my toes through the night. I should add that I do not normally get bitten by anything - ever.As I'm writing this we've just killed another mozzie in the car…

We ventured into Cape York (Queensland) a week and a half ago and it has been an education. It is very remote and wild; way up at the top of Australia, covered in crocodiles, fringed by sharks, and highly inaccessible in many places…but crawling with people. After travelling for several hours on dirt roads and 4 wheel driving through bush, you might expect that the only other soul that you might encounter would be a mad Irishman in his favourite fishing hole or a furry friend…but no, every man and his dog has obviously decided to travel to the cape this week. You can hardly turn around without tripping over someone...so our quest for solitude continues.

We started our adventure at the southern end of The Cape in Lakefield National Park where we met up with two other couples, Mick & Jenny and Seth & Viki, whom we've travelled with since. Our tactical unit consists of ex-nun (Viki), the horse whisperer (Jenny), the ex-army come philosopher (Mick), and the brains of the outfit, the ex-sea captain (Seth).

Lakefield National Park was fantastic…if not a bit crowded at times, what with the 40 dirt bikers that stayed in our camp the first night. Despite the gang of hells angels we persisted and were rewarded. We spent four days there and enjoyed cheribin (prawn type animals) each evening courtesy of Mick, fresh damper and scones cooked in the camp oven (an ingenious invention) courtesy of Viki and Jenny, and fish from the river courtesy of Stef. We hunted and gathered our little hearts out. I mainly supervised…although I did rig up a bucket and a string to toss into the croc infested rivers so that we could wash our dishes and body parts. Essential.

Since then we've had a few escapades. After spending 2 days in the town of Weipa to restock and prepare for our impending adventures, we made our way for what promised to be a magic spot - Pennefather River - camping under beautiful sheoaks, great fishing, dugongs breaching at the mouth of the river…the list of wonders continued. However, as we set off, we were somewhat confused by the instructions on our map. The distance we were to travel was only 80km, yet the map instructed us to allow 3 - 4 hours. Why? I will tell you why. It took 1 hour to get nearly there, and then 3 hours to get yourself out after you've got yourself well and truly bogged just short of the campground. Lovely, at least it was only 33 deg outside with 100% humidity when we were knee deep in sand. The only saving grace was that it was mick (or Rambo as we refer to him when he's not around) and jenny that got bogged and it was land rover got them out…score one for the land rover.

Right then it was back to Weipa for the night with our tails between our legs and our heads hanging low. The following day Mick rallied the troops and we headed north again. There were grumblings (mostly from me) that we should perhaps try the track that had beaten us the day before, but I was voted down by the group and demoted to private by Mick. Instead we went to an easier spot near a beach that was supposed to have good fishing, Cullen Point. We were assured, no real 4wd required - except if some idiot got themselves stuck on the beach…of which there were many. The old landy was back in action the same day as we pulled one Toyota landcruiser after another out of the sand. By the third or fourth landcruiser I had had enough. I could tell by the snorkel on the car, the gleaming white paint job and the lacoste polo shirt that the driver wore that these guys were offroad pros, but just in case I yelled out that we had just pulled out couple landcruisers that morning and we were done for the day so they'd better stay off the beach.

We spent two days at Cullen point and never caught any fish to speak of, although we did see a large shark which was slightly unnerving. Unfortunately our perseverance was only rewarded by swarms of kamikaze mozzies. We had gale force winds and still the "swine", as mick coined them, swarmed as if there wasn't even a breeze and we were all caviar. Sometime between 1am and 2am that night as I lay awake desperately trying not to ripe my perfectly formed toes from my magnificent feet, I decided it was time to leave. We rolled out several incredibly annoying hours later. Team Safari had been beaten.

Signing Out,

Team Safari, Stef & Sue