Our time at The Tip and Punsand Bay

The drive from the Jardine River Ferry to the town of Bamaga only takes about half an hour or so, and the caravan park at Punsand Bay is about another half hour drive further up. I am still so surprised at how accessible it all is. I always though Cape York was so remote and 'full on' and we had packed enough dry food and UHT milk to feed an army accordingly. But actually there's a bakery and a supermarket and really we could have just packed food for a few days and re-stocked once we got here! Also, all the photos of Cape York driving are taken on the Old Telegraph Track. The Penisula Development Road and the Bamaga Road are fully developed. Admittedly they are not sealed (though there are little bits of bitumen to prevent total insanity) and it can be pretty corrugated and rather sandy at times. But we were surprised to realise that you could actually get a 2WD car all the way up to the tip!

We had decided to split our camping time between one of the three places near Bamaga and Punsand Bay up the top. There are actually five separate indigenous communities up here, but they are all quite close together. It's literally a 5 minute drive (on bitumen) between Seisia and Loyalty Beach and Bamaga. Punsand Bay is further north and it has a swimming pool, which was the major draw card for us. 

Since we hadn't bought anything which required a powerpoint (Dunc's second battery was providing 12vts for all devices and the fridge) we got an unpowered site which was right on the beach. Tough life for some...

Dwayne and Anna and their children Rhiannon, Caleb and Billy had joined us with their enormous camper trailer. They had made the drive from Tasmania up to the tip in TWO weeks! They were supposed to be at Punsand Bay for 2 nights, but we were having so much fun together that they extended their stay for another 2, making for a rushed drive south for them. Whoops.

We started with a drive out to see "The Tip". We could have gone on the developed road, but we had Dwayne and his Pajero who could rescue us if needed. So we decided to tackle the "adventure 4WD" shortcut to the tip. I'm sure it had nothing to do with Dwayne calling Dunc a "great big pussy"... It was only 6km but lots of fun, and it meant that Baby Bertha got to do some full-on 4WDing on the cape. And we got to collect some wood for a campfire too!

I'd read about the hike required to get to the actual tip, and we packed a lunch and hiking boots in addition to the fishing rods. In the end, it was only a short scramble, but over lots of rocks, so I'm glad we had proper shoes. We did the usual pics and the rest of them all started fishing. Dwayne is a fishing nut (who else would drive from tassie to the tip?!) and actually hooked a little black tipped reef shark. He was reeling it in and it jumped out of the water a few times which was incredibly impressive. Right when it looked like it was tiring and about to be landed, a bigger shark came and gobbled it up! Doh!

Lexie finally got to catch her fish (it being HER turn and all) but the little stripey grunter was too small to keep.

I spent my time making calls, because yet again we had service in such a remote location! I also took some time to read all the plaques stuck to the rocks up there. There were quite a few memorials to people who had obviously had their ashes scattered there. Unexpectedly, there were a few whose ashes were scattered there by family members to realise their dream posthumously. It struck me that so many had wanted so desperately to get to the tip but never did. And we had. Every now and then I get a thrill at the realisation of what we are actually achieving, and this was one of those times.

Bush fires in the Top End

The attitude to bush fires here is so weird. It's been really hard to wrap our 'southern states' heads around it. We must have driven past at least 50 bush fires since we got as far north as Broome, with 15 of them being at Cape York. Nothing is done about them. They just smoulder away on the side of the road, eventually burning themselves out. We frequently see smoke in the distance, and often have to drive through smoke too.

The flora here is just so different to down south, that I don't think the fires can get as big as we get them. Either that, or there are just so many of them, that the undergrowth literally never has a chance to get entrenched enough to make fires a danger. 

They are often lit by local indigenous communities, or spread by the whistling kite bird, which is also known as a "fire hawk". They pick up burning embers and light new fires in order to flush out more insects and small prey for themselves. 

I think we are actually at the stage now, where there is NO anxiety at the signs of smoke, which is really weird. We've become immune to it, which is probably a dangerous state of mind to be in, considering we will be heading south again soon...

Baby Bertha Rocks It

We are soooooo impressed with our little RAV. When Dunc bought it 5 years ago as his company car, we never imagined we would be doing this sort of stuff with it!

Baby Bertha has happily driven all the way, and we started by taking "the back track" to Laura. We bought a HEMA map of Cape York, which would be the first purchase of any navigation aid in this entire trip! The maps I pick up from the the Visitor Info centres have all been perfectly adequate so far. But we wanted to be sure with this trip, and felt the detail in the HEMA maps was worth the $9 price tag. I very quickly realised that there are 4 types of roads in Cape York. Major roads, minor roads, 4WD tracks and Extreme 4WD tracks (like the Old Telegraph Track). We figured we could do everything except the "Extreme 4WD tracks", and started with a 4WD track to get to the main "Development Road".

We made it as far as Musgrave Roadhouse the first night, where we set up the tent. It took us about 45 mins to get it all up and sorted - tent, blow up mattresses, chairs, tables, bedding and all. The next day we made it to Bramwell Station, having stopped at every roadhouse on the way to stretch our legs. Set up took a little shorter the second time, and Angus was off to enjoy the cows and the resident Brolga, while Dunc was off to the bar to watch the end of Bathurst!

The next day we realised that our timing was a little off, and we would get to the Jardine River ferry right at the lunch break of the bargeman. We would have to kill some time by having our own lunch break at Fruitbat Falls. What a tough break... Swimming in the perfectly temperate crystal clear water and playing under the waterfalls. 

Then (again) something entirely unexpected happened on the road. We turned a corner to find a couple we had seen at almost every roadhouse AND at the falls, broken down on the side of the road. Stephanie was standing in the middle of the road waving us down, and Paul was trying to figure out what to do with their camper trailer. Another car had already stopped to help but being so remote, and looking so damaged, we stopped too. Paul and Stephanie had a really good quality off road Cub Camper, but had hit a bulldust hole without letting the tyres down a bit. The entire right hand side suspension tore out from underneath it and one wheel was completely folded under. 

The boys were trying to tie the camper so they could unload stuff safely and try to disconnect the car, and I introduced myself to the other woman (Anna) who had stopped. I went to check on the kids, and mentioned kids in the car and she said she had some too. I jokingly asked if she had an 11yo girl in there and she did! AND two 8 yo boys! Can you believe it?! We got the kids out to meet each other and entertain each other while the blokes did their thing. Stephanie was a little jittery from the accident and tried to give all their stuff away. We managed to convince them to keep most of their belongings and Paul, Duncan and Dwayne got the camper ratcheted up enough to be able to disconnect the car. 

Eventually Paul was ready to leave the trailer and we all headed towards the ferry. We'd mentioned where we were staying to Dwayne and Anna, and they were heading to the same campground - bonus!

We crossed the Jardine River on the most expensive shortest ferry ride in history. $129 to travel 25m across the river! At least the price included our permit to camp anywhere up there. Which was an incredible relief, after discovering the insanity that is Queensland Parks and Wildlife Services. They have removed all 'self registration' facilities from National Parks. In other states, if we wanted to camp in a NP, we would go there, see if we fit, find a site we like, then fill in an envelope, put the cash in a secure post box and the slip from the envelope on our dashboard. In Queensland, you must register and pay online. Which is fine, if we have phone service. But you don't up there. I tried to register before we left in the hope that we could book a 2 week window to camp in. Um. No. Which campground on which individual evening do you want to pay for?! Really? We don't work that way, how on Earth were we to know which campsite we would be in on which night? How ridiculous. What if you were doing the Old Tele Track and got stuck one night? You've done your cash then, haven't you? Stupid Govt Departments! It would be completely fine if you could book the night before, but with NO phone service, you can't! There are a couple of kiosks, to use in towns, but that was all too ridiculous and we decided to stick to roadhouses and indigenous permit zones instead. 

So we were very happy to be in our paid permit zone. We decided to stick to our "fang it to the top as quick as we can" policy, and headed to Punsand Bay, as close to The Tip as we could camp.