The Tip is a Tip but the Tip's Worth the Trip

The tip of the trip

Why, when there is something truly worth visiting, do Australians make such a monumental job of uglifying it? Apparently, in peak season, the easy road up to the tip sees well over 6,500 cars a month. Add the fly ins, the tour groups, and those that avoid chicken tracks, and there are a lot of people anxious to travel a long way just to tick the tip off their bucket list. My issue is, and it may  be unimportant to most, but I don’t need to know that Tracey, Mark, the DiDinato family, the


DiDinato dickheads

Tazzie Boyz, Stewie, Foxie, Brett, Shayla-Raye, the Hoskin family, the Brentwood Boys, Macca, Wacca, Shakka and his dog Brewsta etc etc etc also got there. I certainly don’t need to share the experience with their non-decomposable, cyclone strength toilet paper and Four XXXX Gold cans. Have a bit of pride people.

 

Sunset at Umagico

At the northernmost part of mainland Australia, there is no signage indicating where to walk. There are no toilets, there are no seats. There is nothing speaking for the (apparently) significant indiginous culture or (allegedly) important European history of the place. There is the remains of a resort of sorts, and a beautiful, wide, white beach. There is also a lot of graffiti and a heap of rubbish. Apparently, in peak season, you have to queue up to get your photo taken at the sad and desecrated sign. We had it to ourselves; just us and a dirty shrine of autographed rubber thongs, now there’s a tradition I call Australian! Give me strength! If anywhere was screaming for a bit of local initiative, if ever there was an opportunity to give the community in Bamaga something to do, it would be here.

 

Oli and his goliath half a fish

We stayed on the beach at Umagico looking over the Torres Strait and yes it was a magical spot. We took a boat over to Thursday Island, ate fair Thai food, and fished a bit. I got a Spanish mackerel, and Oli half a coral trout, with a shark conveniently letting go of the fish before Oli could get it into the boat as well. Our guide Tom, with his wispy moustache and indications of private education, moved around the boat the way Sara moves around a kitchen (her words). After that, we really didn’t know what else to do. The cape is without an operational tourist information centre, choosing to rely on mud maps handed out by some bloke who lives in the “Croc Shack” on the road to the tip. No surprises, but we didn’t stop there because we didn’t want to feel obligated to buy an “I Survived the Trip to the Tip” t-shirt. Maybe we should have. Nick Linton, get up here and straighten this place out!

 

Trentham Falls south of Cooktown

Still, we had survived the trip to as far North as we could get and loved its’ beauty, now we really were headed South and home. Cape York is known for its bird-watching, and Oli had created lists of birds he wanted to see with the result that he dictated the schedule back to Cairns. Visiting Iron Range and Lakefield National Parks we camped in rainforests, beside rivers and in woodland. For the first time, the processes associated with making and breaking camp didn’t wear us down, and the tents survived their first taste of serious rain. Plenty of driving, plenty of water, but plenty of wildlife too, and most of the birds the Big O wanted.

 

Ivy at Cape Tribulation

Cooktown was an interesting and windy stop, the towns’ effort to give its’ visitors something to do and see in sharp contrast to Seisa and Bamaga. Great fish and chips too, and more than enough properties and businesses for sale if you have a hankering for a sea-change. Having had no trouble with the Bloomfield track, another 4WD adventure that has succumbed to asphalt, we returned to the Daintree we’d briefly encountered with the FannNoonans, and camped in a field at Cape Tribulation surrounded by backpackers in Wicked vans. The next morning, a spot opened up under the trees and Sara burned what rubber was still left on the tyres getting the car in to bags the posi. We carried the tents across and settled in to explore at leisure.

 

Oli at Mason's swimming hole, Cape Tribulation

That was okay for half a day, then there was some serious touristing to be done. One croc tour would never have been enough so we chose the mob that promised more for less. Luckily, they delivered in spades and if the administrative staff wasn’t enthusiastic, the guides were brilliant. First off was Peter, aka Mangrove Man. He took us out twice that day, making a special effort to look after Oli having heard the Kingfisher Camp saga. His shtick was almost identical morning to afternoon, and we now know almost too much about mangroves and bad Irish jokes. We also went twice to the Daintree Discovery Centre, but sadly only once to the organic bio-dynamic ice cream shop. Ivy connected with several leeches, Ned saw a wild pig but didn’t chase it this time, and Sara spotted our first cassowary. Another croc cruise the next morning on the way back to Cairns, this time with Lex, a local whose mum still lives on the dairy farm he grew up on. Crocs, snakes, frogs, flowers, birds, and a dead calf all delivered with local flavour and not a hippy in sight.

 



 

 

 





Ned finishing his undie run strongly



We found the hippies the next day at the Kuranda festival outside of Cairns. However the real reason we went was to participate in the second annual undie fun-run. I was disappointed Sara sat this one out especially given how well her birthday present 5 pack has been holding up, but Ned was determined to take her place. We three boys set off in tasteful boxer shorts to appropriately little fanfare and tackled the hilly 3.5k circuit. Could have been worse, there was a fat Englishman running in a pair of saggy blue y-fronts! We all managed to stay well in front of him! We then watched a bikie with no front teeth come in a narrow second in the sausage eating competition, listened to some reggae, avoided buying anything at the craft market, and set off back down the hill to Cairns having adopted a bat at the bat rescue shelter and naming him Barney. Who’s the fastest bat in the world? The Barnes is of course!



The Barnes (the bat, not the whippet)



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I'd Still Rather Push my Landrover, than Drive a Toyota

An Austin 7; the first car to drive to the tip

Gareth called and spoke to Sara. Priscilla was ready for pick up. Gareth wasn’t the most inspiring of Landrover mechanics. He answered most of my questions with a shrug of his shoulders, and  in his too soft Welsh lilt, he offered the obvious but blindingly useless observation , “It’s a Landrover mate, you’ve got to expect these things.” Makes his choice of profession seem gifted. Still, we were back on the road, and it was action stations as we prepared for our greatest adventure having done the least amount of planning.

 

Kids in a sprinkler at Moreton Telegraph Station

Again we had heard the horror stories of strandings and punctures and drownings and other Top End type disasters. Again we chose to ignore them. We parked Kimmy up the back for the princely sum of $6 a night (seventh night free), and managed to get out of Cairns in the late afternoon. Too late unfortunately for coffee tasting at Coffee World, but not too late to pick up a new coffee cup for Sara and a frypan from Crazy Clarks, because we’d forgotten to pack one.

 

Wenlock River

 Mt Carbine was the first stop and Mt Carbine has a pub. Mt Carbine also has a tungsten mine, a lake popular with bird watchers, and a quiet caravan park on top of the hill. The pub was a hit with trashie mags for Sara, free pool, darts, hookey, and table soccer for the kids, and beer for me. Could have done without the cheesy chicken and mango salad though.

 

We left the next morning having finally taken some advice on board. We would take the inland route up and the coastal route back. Simple. Armed with the simplest of directions, we eventually found the bird watchers lake, but no ducks of distinction. From there the Peninsula Development Road (PDR) stretched away into the distance. The days highlight was the iced coffee in Laura, and learning that an Austin 7 was the first car to drive to the tip. Not sure what Gareth would have made of that. A long day got us to the Archer River Roadhouse, famous for…wait for it… the Archerburger! It is apparently very important these days to be famous for something, but I’ve driven past too many famous burger stops now to be impressed. No, it was time to open up some cans of beans and put the new stove to the test.

 



Palm Creek; 8ft drop into a clay pit, no Discos allowed

Jocy had said Weipa was worth a look, so we had a look. First stop was the cultural centre, which happened to be closed. It was closed because Rio Tinto, the small company that runs / owns Weipa, was celebrating 10 years of running an indigenous mining training program with a buffet lunch. Noting our kids distress at being excluded from a museum, we were assured we were welcome and so we went in, but that wasn’t the good bit. A big bloke called Frank wandered over to our skinny blonde kids and asked if they needed a feed because they’d over catered. He didn’t need to ask twice. Pies, pastries, salads and fruit juice. Heaven. And then they brought out dessert. We rolled out of Weipa after the obligatory, but ultimately duckless stop at the poo ponds.

 

Elliot Falls

More driving, a night at the Moreton Telegraph station, a raid on a mango tree, and we headed off again. A brief look at the start of the Old Telegraph Track (OTT) was all we needed to decide that attempting it in Priscilla was well beyond her all too complicated engineering and us. Fortunately the PDR is a super highway and we headed up to Elliot Falls for the night. It got a bit tricky on the way in, but we made it, and prepared to tackle the easier sections of the OTT the next morning. I’d been assured by several blokes who were drinking beer for breakfast that the chicken tracks were very doable. The reccie looked okay, but halfway across Canal Creek, panic set in. I backed out, and slunk past my smirking blue singletted, Toyota driving friends. Pride got in the way of comfortable conversation for a little while, but ultimately sanity had prevailed and on to the tip we drove.

 

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We're Not Talking About the Football

Wonga Beach

Daintree view
 

The lovely but admittedly slightly unnerving thing asbout Oli being a birdwatcher, is that so many strange older people want to adopt him. He has been showered with hints and advice and encouragement. Frank even showed up unannounced at the caravan in Cairns to give him a tape of Daintree bird sounds that his grown up and gone sons had no interest in. However the bubble of birding love was rudely popped by the manager of the Kingfisher Birdwatching Resort who flatly refused us a campsite because "the children would get bored". Nice of him to think of their welfare. Suggesting that the father might get bored might have been more accurate. We left with Oli almost in tears, and while staying with hard core, militant grey nomads at Wonga Beach filed an aggressively negative review on tripadvisor.com. Deal with that nasty rude bird place man!

Onto the beach at Port Douglas and we could have been in Broome. Victorians everywhere on a massively wide, white beach, with stingers and crocodiles patrolling just offshore. Friends from home, the Neavetts and the previously encountered FannNoonans were there. A quick catch up, then onto more pressing issues like where to eat for dinner sans children. Thai was the answer, followed by burnt toffee icecream.



The next day we drove up to the Daintree, with Oli and Eammon pretty much picking up where they left off nine months ago; subjecting us to the chatter, nonsensical language, dubious music and one upmanship of 11 year old boys. We'd swapped Eammon for Ivy, who happily indulged Gerda, Kev and Imogen with her own non-stop chatter, at least until she fell asleep. The purpose of the drive was to go "Jungle-Surfing". No boards or waves here though, just high flying foxes. Kids loved it, but the overall opinion was that it would have been better if it was higher, faster, and longer. We saw rain for the first time in 5 months too. Torrential stuff but very exciting. A couple more meals out, a breath test, a bbq, a football game Ned and I have since forgotten about, and more ice cream. That'll do for PD.

Oli on the high wire

Arriving in Cairns, the first job was to get the car fixed. Two weeks previously we'd had it assessed, and the news wasn't great. Still, if we were to tackle Cape York, it was necessary. We were staying at Australia's only 5 star caravan park, complete with water park, two pools, mini-golf, movies, two jumping pillows, etc etc. Sara and Oli went birding, the rest of us stayed and played. We did manage to drag ourselves away to explore Cairns a bit. Bumped into Tracey (married to Terry the baker from Lawn Hill) and meant to call but didn't. Saw a movie, shopped, fixed the ringtone on the phone, washed the van. All that normal stuff normal people do. Time to move on, I think things are getting a little too comfortable!

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Tinkerbell, Cookie Monster, Mad Max, Bugs Bunny, Robin Hood, Dennis the Menace, Catwoman, & Mary Poppins