SEGMENT 10

June 1: We finished the Savannah Way on the Queensland side where flood damages from the heavy cyclone season were even more apparent and we found many rivers still overflowing (pic01). After all this time in very remote areas, the rolling hills with farmland interspersed with pockets of lush rainforest in the Atherton Tablelands were quite a change. This area is famous for its scenery, waterfalls and giant fig trees (pic02) but we found some of the walking trails almost inaccessible or even closed. We enjoyed a long swim in the magnificent Lake Eacham and rested up in the adjacent caravan park which, with its quaint lay-out, charming hosts and unbeatable carrot cake, was one of the most rewarding stops. Here we met an Australian couple touring the continent who were temporarily working for the National Park Service to clear out some of the walking trails, cutting fallen trees with chainsaws and removing other cyclone damage...

Once again our conspicuous rig made us new friends: Peter and Christine spotted us in Atherton and invited us to visit their home the next day where Peter, a certified mechanic, would give our Jeep a full once-over to prepare it for the thousands of kilometers still ahead of us. We gratefully accepted their offer and drove away half a day later with a clean truck. After a visit to a local coffee plantation where an Italian couple has been living their passion for coffee for decades and we enjoyed the best cappuccino in Australia, and a short stop in terribly touristy Kuranda we finally reached Cairns, mecca for scuba divers due its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef, the only geological feature on Earth visible from space with your naked eye! We decided to postpone a trip to the reef until our return in a few weeks as the weather and visibility were still impacted from the long Wet and we wanted to give things time to calm down. In Cairns we soaked up city life for a few days. We also tried to get updated information on the conditions of the Cape York road - this is a rough 4x4 track to the northernmost point of Australia which had suffered severe flood damages during cyclones Larry and Monica. As before, we found it very difficult to obtain updated information, a fate we seemed to share with the helpful folks at TJM, a 4x4 store which was about to send an expedition to the cape in support of an Australian off-roading magazine. We called some of the roadhouses along the road to ensure that they hadn't run out of fuel yet as for months, large trucks had not been able to travel this road. After a relaxing day at the beach, we left Cairns and headed north on the scenic Bloomfield Track which winds, drops and climbs through spectacular rainforest, offering views of secluded beaches, waterfalls and quaint creeks. Daintree National Park has some fantastic chasms, such as Mossman Gorge, where we watched some flying foxes hunt insects (pic03). All the while, we had thick rainclouds looming over us, with an occasional light shower, but temperatures remained warm. We just hoped that no severe rainstorms would get some of the just opened roads closed again!

June 9: Cooktown, the place were Lt. James Cook landed his Bark Endeavour in 1770 and claimed Australia for the English crown, practically "discovering" Australia from the European viewpoint, has a lot of historic buildings and the best stocked bakery since we left Perth. We enjoyed some local yarn before moving on to Colored Sands, a magnificent display of mineral-tainted sand dunes on the coast near Elim where we came upon a visitor's "artistic" addition to the attraction (pic04). Next we visited Lakefield National Park, aptly named for its huge lakes during the rainy season which shrink to multiple large waterholes during the Dry. From here on out, we would be traveling on unpaved roads for the next 600 miles (1000 kms). This area is renowned for its birdviewing opportunities and remote landscape but only the southern half of the park was open at this stage. Once we left the main track, the side roads were unmaintained and often grown over to a point where we had to guess the direction (pic05). They were a lot of fun to explore and we didn't encounter any other travelers the entire day as we cruised through dense grasslands, passed the occasional tranquil palm oasis and marveled at the most amazing display of water lilies. Hoping for the rest of the park to open up by the time we'd return, we continued to the Peninsula Development Road to head for the tip. Our Cape York adventure was about to begin...

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