This is the top half of Cape York



Loyalty beach is just a couple of
kilometres out of Seisia, this is where we stayed last time . It is a
little greener but not as tidy as last time , they have a different
manager and a new couple in the kiosk- reception area. They are all
nice the manager used to work here and the young couple have been
here just 4 weeks.
We find a nice place to park but not
quite on the beach as this time because of the weather we need to
plug into power.
 
 
The same shower block has got the white
lipped green tree frogs and we found the Papuan frogmouths again in
the trees around the same area.
 
We have small tiny brown frogs in our
power box and a weird long feller bug.
I or we must be getting old and grumpy
as we got annoyed at these stupid group of people putting the green
tree frogs on their kids heads and parading them around for
photos.They are teaching the next generation well -no respect for any
other life just their own.
On Sunday morning we walked down the
beach into Seisia to watch them unload the cargo ferry at the jetty.
Supplies arrive every Sunday from Cairns and things have not changed.
It looks like the jetty would not hold the fork lift that goes out to
the boat, the fork on the boat picks up a container and passes it to
the bigger on on the jetty that has a pallet on its forks. The bigger
forklift then has to put it down take out its forks from the pallet
and re-position them into the container, then do some thing like a 3
point turn to position himself to drive down the jetty. He has to
raise the container high in the air so he can see the narrow jetty
and to miss the side rails. This is repeated for all the containers,
some of which may contain cars of those people only driving down the
cape. Like the people we met at Captain Billy's landing. They do this
as quickly as possible to get the boat out again on the tide.



On the Monday we refill our gas bottle
, pack up and head out for the 'Tip' of Australia. We stop on the way
at Bamaga to get new windscreen wiper blades as it is still raining
and ours are not doing a good job. Our next stop is The Croc Tent ,it
gives out information and sells their own brand of souvenirs like 'T'
shirts with the Tip on them. All to expensive for us to get something
for all family so just get information on the tracks and things. 
 We see our first tour bus, group this time, in the parking lot at the
'Tip' they were just finishing their walk and having snacks. We take
the beach track to get there ,but the tide is in so we have to go
around the mangroves and across the rocks before going upwards. We
are the only ones up there at this time so get photos and return
across the top track back to the car park


 . I did not slip over this
time trying to fall of the edge of Australia, at least this time the
water is up to the edge and I would not have had far to fall to be in
the water. The 'Tip ' of Australia is approximately 10 deg south of
the Equator and 180 klm to Papua New Guinea.

We head to Somerset Beach to find the
tour bus there finishing their walk and talk and having lunch. We
were going to camp here and look at fly point incase we could see
dugong and turtles, but after our walk and a look around at the mess
and rubbish we decided to move on. The island off sure offers a ferry
across which we thought of but we find out its just for fishing trips
not to have a look at the island.
 
Somerset beach was first settle by
europeans in 1860s the old Jardine homestead site is here, not much
left though. Jardine family graves and those of the pearl divers of
the area are here too but the signage is either gone or unreadable.

We had seen and read about a camp at
Umagica on the beach called Aloa so we headed there.
Well we find spot on the beach , its
raining so we only have a short walk for exercise . This is the
other side of Seisia jetty than Loyalty beach , just a bit further
away its more rocky , we can see the jetty just. It has a resident
salt water crocodile but we see no sign of him. During the night the
young males of the town play music very loud and drink . Umagico is a
Aboriginal community and new houses are being built but not for
white people. About midnight the carpenter on the new houses , who
employs a couple of the young men, gets them to tone it down alittle
but its not long and its back full on again until early morning.
Most of them have nothing to do with their time so sleep all day
party all night. The town is nice in places but quite unkept with
rubbish in other parts. As soon as the rain stops enough for the tent
to dry a little we pack up to leave and call in at the little
supermarket for fresh bread and fruit from the boat that arrived
Sunday, but this is Tuesday and nothing has been put on the shelves
so we head back 5km to Bamaga to their supermarket for our things.
Yes the new stock is on the shelves , and a different attitude is
here.

All around the area above the Jardine
river which ever community/ town you go to are horses just roaming
all over doing there thing and dogs all over doing there thing. Ok
the horses have green grass most times and can usually find enough
food , but the dogs have to scavenge for food and just keep making
more dogs to have to scavenge. Neither gets medical treatment when
needed, food or respect, i'm saying no more , it is worse now than it
was 3 years ago. I know they look at life differently here.
A little about the top of Cape York.

1606 first european that found Cape
York
1806-Cook claimed Australia for England
& planted the flag on Possession island
1864 was the arrival of first white
settlers in the Jardine family

1870 to 80's-Gold rush
1887 -the overland telegraph line was
here.
Indigenous people arrived 30,000 years
ago
WW11 saw thousands of American and
Australian service men based at airstrips here for the battle against
the Japanese over the Coral sea & New Guinea. Horn island in
Torres strait was attacked 8 times.
1950 Bauxite found and Weipa was set up
on the west coast by Comalco mining company to service the miners/
workers.
1800 kilometres wilderness coastline ,
the most pristine section of the Great Barrier reef with sea grass
beds that support the worlds largest Dugong populations is on East
coast.
21 wild rivers in Cape York the best
known are the Wenlock, Pascoe,Archer and Queensland’s largest
perennial river the Jardine. Jardine has a cable ferry to cross it.
At a cost of $99 per car return.
High annual rainfall ,usually over
1500mm, collects in shallow sandstone bedrock and seeps into
waterways throughout the year, Rainforest, open forest and dry heath
to wet heath swamps are formed depending on the depth of the
groundwater.
The rivers are wild rivers with nothing
stopping the flow. So when it rains they flow fast taking all that
rainfall straight to the sea with nothing stopping them.
Bamaga, Seisia Loyalty beach are mostly
descended from 5 island groups evacuated from low lying islands in
Torres straight in the late 1940's.
Injinoo, Umagica are local Aboriginal
tribes

New Mapoon is people relocated from
Mapoon near Weipa




We headed out to Mutee point , this
track is not bad has had some work not long ago. This is the sight of
WW11 radar tower. We stayed the night just back from a turtle nesting
beach. Turtles come ashore in July to October to lay there eggs ,
Green and Hawsksbill turtles.

Its a good job they are not here now as
some idiot has got past the barriers onto the beach with there cars
and driven up and down. There is also rubbish from campers all over
with bottles and shoes tied from trees with signs like ,we were here
date some have names, there goes that grumpy me again.

Another couple where here and cut down
some stuff and bagged it to take to the rubbish tip as they had room
on their camper trailer and where heading past the rubbish dump
point. They had taken photos of rubbish and stupid tree bottle and
shoe messages and posted online as they were also sick of the mess
some campers leave.
We had been told of a place with
stunning views of the ocean with great birds and a walk to caves with
paintings. So we thought we had to take a look even though it was a
bad road . First you had to get to Usher Point which we had thought
about visiting and go from there to the next point which is Sadd
point. The Bamaga 4 whee l drive club member, where we got wiper
blades, said she was there the weekend before and showed us some
photos. She said there is a resident black headed python in a hollow
tree at the campsite that comes out and gets sun and just lays there,
that would be good to see. Then the Croc tent lady said Sadd point
was one of her favourites too.

Well it took us 4 hours to travel 90km
with add on time to clear branches off the road. People have just
driven over them or made new tracks around, and add half hour to
chop and drag a just fallen branch we had to clear to get any
further. We stopped at a lagoon at Usher point where the first camp
site is and I fell over and hurt my knee on rocks. Yes rubbish every
where. 
 
 We pushed on the 27 km ,without seeing Usher Point, to get to
Sadd point. This was a very narrow track with over hanging trees and
bushes, we had to pull the side mirrors in.
 
  When we finally arrived the view is stunning but the small campsite disgusting with rubbish
and the usual messages on shoes, bottles etc strung up in trees. 
 
 The whole place smelt bad. We looked around the hollow trees for the
python but no sign and I don't blame it for leaving ,if it did and
was not killed. The sky got even darker with rain, as some of this
is a sand track and some black sand which gets boggy, we decided we
did not like the place enough to get stuck in here for a few days so
we headed out again. 10 hours spent travelling on a not good track
and we finally pull up for the night at the Jardine river camp and
wouldn't you know it was full of rubbish. We are too tired and hungry
too think about it lets eat and sleep.
We did get a fly over by all the fruit
bats from Eliot and fruit bat falls at dusk which was good to
watch.
 
We thought we would leave the tent up
to dry for a while but at 7am it was very cloudy and threatening rain
so we packed up and headed for the ferry. This opens at 8am so is
open by the time we get there and it is also pouring with rain
again. As we get of the ferry it gets even harder rain, they did not
get there monsoon rains before but are sure getting good rain now.

I know we said we wanted to see this
area a bit wetter then it was last time but we did mean greener and
more water in creeks and rivers not falling from the clouds every
day.
The road gets pretty bad in places but
by the time we are at Fruit bat falls turn off it is only showers ,
so we decide to have our last swim in the falls. It is only 10mins in
on a track, that at the moment is no worse than the road we are on.
Back on the Development road we pull up
at Bramwell road house, not station, for lunch and fuel. I have a
veggie burger $10 and Larry has there special burger $12, both very
filling.
 

Then its on to one of our favourite
places up here, Moreton Telegraph station. Here we spend a couple of
days washing and drying out as much as we can. This is Thursday &
Friday 20-21 May ,and it is still showering. Just as things get dry
it gets muggy and all feels damp again. This place has a young lady
manager and 6 backpacker girls from different countries as worker and
2 Australian male workers , all are nice . We decide to see what
Merluna Station is like after reading some of there adds, as we have
days before we are booked to be in Lakefield national park.
Sat 21 May and we are in Merluna
station. The Maclean family have owned for the past 12 years. The
workers quarters have been turned into accommodation and camping
area. It is 416,000 acres or 169,000 ha, with 1000 of contained
cattle and many thousand head of cattle running free. Only one road
in , mail plain on Tuesday, supplies by truck monthly from Mareeba.
Very relaxed people and place with bush walks and plenty wildlife.
Only trouble is it started to rain again very heavy so we did not
even attempt to put up the tent, we sat and ate lunch & dinner
under a shelter for campers and were going to put our sleeping bags
here too. At 7.30pm the lady who owns Merluna came down and offered
us a bed ,in one of the rooms set up for the road workers, that were
not now arriving until Monday. This was at no extra cost to us just
our $30 camping with power fee, very nice of her. It had toilet and
shower but no hot water as something was wrong with it and because of
rain no one was going to go out and fix it this night. Thats ok we
had had a shower early before it stopped working. It was raining that
much the supply truck had pulled in at Archer river roadhouse,as
roads were too bad for him to get any further, not good news as this
was were we were heading in the morning. The Archer river was up over
the road and flowing quite fast too, hope its down a bit for us to
cross.
 


The sign shows cars get washed over.
By the time we get there it is down and
it is safe to cross and we pull up for the night at Archer river
roadhouse Sunday 22 may.
The development road with heavy rain
has been an experience , good job Larry driving with his experience,
I would have slipped off or spun us around. Even the bitumen bits
have very soft sloppy edges so there would be trouble if you lost it
in the water on the road and went off.

Alot of people have pulled in here
waiting for the river to go down and the road to dry a little.

They have a television in restaurant
bit and lots of people watching weather reports. Cairns lots rain
and Cooktown and Hometown is cut off in places. We get told of road
closure into the National park we are going to , then of the park
closure. Queensland parks & wildlife should have left the
opening of this park to the 1^st June and not changed it
to earlier and we should have not moved our bookings up. Now we can
not get in and have to wait to see if we can move bookings back to
1^st June. After staying the night we decide to head for
Mt Carbine and the caravan and sort things out.

We have an even worse stretch of road
to get to Laura and it takes us until late afternoon and with
another 170klm to go to Carbine we decide to stop for the night,
even though its bitumen from here. It would be dark trying to hook up
and move the caravan from its storage area.
 

The only thing good in Laura is we
could phone Cooktown shire office and get a road update and QLD parks
to get a update on re-opening Lakefield. So we had to get a credit
on what we had paid and re-book for when we were originally going in
the park. We end up with original dates but not sites and having to
pay again and take a credit as they do not refund . This means we
have a credit we can use on a different QLD national park.

As we get closer to Mt Carbine the
weather does get better and we have a week to dry out get rid of the
mold in the tent and re-water proof it, wash and dry everything and
do some shopping. So one day is used to go to Mareeba and its Coles
supermarket , get some water proofing stuff etc. about 70klm. Another
day we go across the mountain range to the coast to Port Douglas
Wildlife Habitat, about 75 klm. We are there for breakfast with the
birds. They have some birds and wildlife that are very hard to see in
the wild because of them being endangered. So we get there for the 8
am start and are still there at 2.30 pm,long day walking around . To
start with after breakfast and meeting some of the birds we follow
the feed trolly and keeper around then go back to all the habitats to
see things in a slower way. It cost just over $100 for both of use
for the day and breakfast so I had packed lunch and water in our car
fridge and we got a pass out for lunch.
]  

We had bucket washed most mud off the
car in Laura but we found the car wash in Port Douglas to re wash and
get all the built up mud from under the car.
We get back to Mt Carbine to find that
Jennifer the lady owner had been taken to hospital leaving husband
Robert to run things alone. They are in there 70s and she has heart
problems which is why they have the place on the market. Jennifer is
taken from Mareeba by ambulance to Cairns hospital and is still there
when we leave for Lakefield. Robert is told that no hesitating sell
the park. We will be back in 2 weeks and I hope all is well they are
such nice people.

This will be sent from Laura on our way
into Lakefield National Park to complete our Cape York trip. We will
go into Lakefield for 5 days then into Cooktown , Daintree, Cape
Tribulation then into Mosman and back to pick up the caravan in Mt.
Carbine. We do not have enough wifi strength to send from Mt.
Carbine so will wait a couple of hours until we get to Laura to send.
We have just watched the woman being
taken by a crocodile in Cape Tribulation so we will not swim along
the coast anywhere, just in swimming pools.
Still not enough signal strength so this will be sent in Cooktown in a few days time