Episode 12 is here, Cape York.

Enjoy beautiful readers.  Xo

 

Cape York.  What a place.  The fish, the weather, the coastline, the company.  Where to begin, well from the start I guess hey?!

We left Cook Town and b-lined it straight up to Weipa, the gateway to The Cape, where we had planned to meet our good friend & fellow frother of fish, Matt.

Weipa is a small place – built around a mine, a few streets, one main shopping complex, a jetty & that about sums it up.  Besides the mining it’s a fishing town, & we were here to fish.  Honestly Fred has been so excited for this part of the trip for so long.  Catching up with some friends while fishing allllll day everyday catching us breakfast lunch and dinner is what his dreams are made of.  While Matt was finishing up his last few days of work on board a fishing tour boat we decided to have a crack in the tinny around the waterways & off the beaches of Weipa.

 

Matt & his work mate (the barramundi Guru) Donnie met up with us at the caravan park.  We headed out that night for a midnight fish under a nearby bridge, where apparently at the right tide the big mother barra get on the bite.  Though the tide was in our favour, unfortunately this night wasn’t our night for bagging a stonking barra.  Instead we had a few beers, a few yarns & hooked a few delicious & decent sized threadfin salmon.

 

Before we started our big journey up the cape we were waiting on one more member of our little cape crew, Russell.  He wasn’t arriving for a few more days so to fill the time we snuck in a trip just north of Weipa up to Stone Crossing.  It was a magic little area, camp on the river to ourselves, breathtaking sunsets & plenty of fish on the bite.  Could not complain!

 

 

This saratoga (below) I snagged was a memory I won’t be forgetting.  We were slowly mozying up the creek, still sussing out all the snags (clusters of fallen trees in the river; aka barramundi haven), & I just thought I’ll have a flick along the way.  Spotted a little snag under some overhanging shrubs & blow me sideways my cast went long, straight & was hit by this saratoga before it even hit the water!  It was epic! (especially seeing as half, possibly more, of my casts end up NO where near where I intended them to go!).

 

Back in Weipa, preparing all our gear & collecting the last member of The Cape Crew.  See below the boys showing off their plastic toys to each other.  I’ve learned this year there simply is no such thing as enough tackle according to a fisherman.

 

First stop on our way up the cape, Fruit Bat Falls.  And all to ourselves, how spoiled are we?!  Perfect location to cool down after a morning spent in the car.

 

Bit of a tight spot at the Crystal Creek Crossing.  This track we later found out is now closed to the general public due to a mining lease.  But there was no signage when we came through & the ranger we later met on the beach was nice enough to let us stay camped for a couple nights.  Especially after he heard we took the old log bridge in (there was a non hectic option, but of course we had to take the challenge!).  In the rangers words, “you fellas craaaazeeee, that bridge is not maintained, you lucky.  Lucky crazies” he chuckled.  I was thinking more along the line of “you idiots!”.  It was a little stressful, getting the patrol & camper across was pretty tight!  One tire nearly, nearly went off.  I’m VERY glad it didn’t, LOL.  The boys of course were like “she’ll be riiiiight”, as they alway say until it is not right.  But this time, to my very happy relief she was right! YAY.  Though I have to mention there was a lot more sweat beading off each of the boys brows throughout the process, they will never admit that though!

 

After the adrenaline rush of crossing the dodgy log bridge & making it to the beach, it was only more than necessary for us to get bogged a half a dozen times before we made it to the camp spot at the end!

The waterways & fishing around Vrilya Point (the camp spot at the end of the beach) were second to none.  Barramundi, mangrove jack, small GT’s, flatties & queenys keeping us entertained for our entire stay.

 

Not to mention the sunrises!

 

 

After leaving Vrilya Point we kept on the road north stopping in a few of the small towns along the way.

 

Punsand Bay was our next camp spot.  Located a smidgen south of the most northern point of Australia, it’s a beautiful big bay with a few scattered islands around as well as some small creeks to explore.   You can see the local indigenous peoples cruising the water in search of turtles during the day up here.  They still hunt & eat them which is quite interesting!  One of the better things about travelling around the cape so late in the year (during October / November) was that there was literally no one else around.  We didn’t share a single camp site, what a treat.

 

Mackerel for dinner this night.  Perfect size for the 4 of us!

 

And here’s old Rus dawg listening for his own bowel sounds.  He had convinced himself something was seriously wrong after losing track of his ‘regular’ motions.  Mr hypochondriac, google always works wonders, LOL.  Status update – peristalsis was present & the next morning the big boy was back on track & worries diminished back to below sub zero.

 

The Tip.

 

Arriving here felt like such a milestone.  We have come so far since the beginning of 2017, experienced so much coastline, so much of what Australia has to offer, as well as grown so much personally.  A feeling of significance, from here on we only have the east coast left to travel before we are home n hosed.  It kind of felt like the beginning of the end, though not in such a dramatic way, more so in a happy we have come so far kind of a way, if that makes sense.  One things for sure it has been one hell of a crazy adventurous year!!

 

As our luck would have it as soon as we had spent our time at the tip & were on the road south again, hiccups.  We had planned on camping at a few more locations on the eastern side of the cape on the way south.  But Perry the Patrol & his failing clutch had other plans for us.  It was a Sunday, no where was open & the clutch was well & truly on it’s way out, any kind of hill was getting a bit more than sketchy.  So the team decided it’s best to head south, see if we can get it fixed in Cairns.  Almost as soon as this decision was made it started raining.  Like, really raining.  Like the wet season is here kinda raining.  We had gone as far as we could in the day & had to pull up for camp.  It thunder stormed like I have never heard before!  So loud!!  I find thunderstorms like that fun & terrifying all at once, when the lightening is striking so close by – it’s an amazing rush, well just as long as it does’t burn me to a crisp.

We spent the night resting up to the sound of rain, thinking about how fun #notfun it was going to be packing all our soaking things up & hoping we would be able to make it back down south, along the dusty red now extremely wet & muddy road!

The rain & clutch combined – I figured it was a sign ~ we were ready to head south, back to civilization, back to work.   With a few slides through the mud & some over night stops along the way (highly recommend the ‘rum bar’ at Port Douglas) we made it back to Townsville.  Fred’s family live here so this is where we are pulling up stops for a while.  Fred has to get back to sea, & I had lined up a job at the hospital here.  First time I’ve worked all year!!  Lol.

Matt & Russell continued south back home to The Sunshine Coast.  MASSIVE shout out to you boys.  It was so SO good to have you join us for this part of the trip & really make the cape an adventure to remember!  Double lucky we got to have you on your birthday Russell!  It was just so crazy good to hang out with some of our closest friend’s, we have missed them all so much this year.  That’s definitely one thing travel is good for, making you truly appreciated the people you leave behind back home.

 

Apologies for the delay in posting about the cape, it seems working life got the better of my time!  As it does!!!  Working through all November has been great, it was so great to get back into an emergency department & get my ‘nurse on’ again.  I love my work, but I also love my holidays!  This stint definitely made me further appreciate how lucky we have been to travel so much this year.  And it has given us (more so me, seeing as Fred has still been working half the year) not only the coin but also the itch to get back into some more adventures.  Fred is now back to working month on, month off, so our travels will be back into a more of a stop start pattern.

The next chapter of our travels around Australia is going to be a bit different – a sea chapter.  Sailing the Great Barrier & Marion Reefs as well as the Whitsundays on Fred’s parents new yacht.  And we are PUMPED (UNDER statement of the year)!!!!!!!

Until then, thanks for reading.

Xo