Aug 29-31 (Day 211-213) - Coen to Karumba via Dixie Rd (Artemis Station)

Saturday August 29

The next section of our travels were going to take us through some fairly remote parts of the Cape. So we stocked up on food, filled the water tanks on the van to capacity, emptied the toilet and got everything as ready to go as possible. If you didn't read about the different options and why we took this track, check out this post near the bottom, in the section about Dixie Rd.

The three route options. We ended up taking Route 3 - Dixie Rd

Fuel tank at Musgrave Station

The first part of the drive was pretty straightforward, just more red dirt road and more corrugations. Our first stop was Musgrave Station to top up the fuel tanks - fuel here was $1.50/L, compared to $1.75/L at Coen. Though interestingly while we were here the tanker truck was refilling the station's tanks and he said he was on his way to Archer River and Coen after that - so it's the same fuel, but Coen charges an extra $0.25/L. You may remember we stopped here on the way up a month ago and saw dozens of cattle scattered across the air strip!

Aug 19 - 28 (Day 201 - 210) - Weipa to Coen, staying at Coen

Wednesday 19 July

Sorry it's been so long! We've had limited signal and limited time (believe it or not!). But here we are, finally publishing this entry on September 4!

Before leaving Weipa we couldn't help noticing a couple of these enormous Mercedes-Benz 4WD ex-Army trucks! I spoke to the owner and he said they were planning to travel for about 10 years in them, and when they've finished in Australia and travel is allowed again they're planning on heading to Africa. Quite a journey! He said it's got about a 7 litre engine so I did ask about the fuel economy (hardly an appropriate term for a tank this size!) and he said he gets about 1km per litre - i.e. 100L/100km. As an indication, when we're towing our van we get about 18L/100km in our Pajero, and most modern vehicles get around 10L/100km or better. I would hate to be paying the bill to run these beasts!

A giant machine - and expensive to run!!

Aug 15-18 (Day 197-200) - Fruit Bat Falls to Weipa

We rose early and moved our van back to the normal carpark, just in case anyone wanted to cause us trouble, but no-one did. We had a morning swim at Fruit Bat Falls for a good 30 minutes and went back to the van to have breakfast, and no-one turned up at all!

Fruit Bat Falls at 7:30am - nice way to start the day!

Aug 14 (Day 196) - Jardine River quarry to Fruit Bat Falls

 

Today was the day we really wanted to have a good swim at Fruit Bat Falls and Eliot Falls. We had seen these both briefly on August 3, on our Telegraph Track day, but hadn't had time to really make the most of them.

Our food supplies were starting to get a little low. On reflection we could have bought up a bit more at Bamaga or Seisia, but we were reasonably well stocked then so didn't think of what might be coming. Given we didn't, we realised our best option for a full shop was Weipa. Weipa is certainly the best provisioned place in the northern half of the Cape. This wasn't in our original plan, having already been to Weipa a week or so ago, but it seemed inevitable.

So our plan today was to drive down past Bramwell Station and hopefully stop for the night at Moreton Station, which is a nice-looking station right by the Wenlock River. We'd driven past this a few times already during our commutes from Bramwell to Weipa so thought it would be worth a stop in.

But before that we had to get to Fruit Bat Falls!

Aug 12-13 (Day 194-195) – Umagico to random quarry near Jardine River

 Wednesday August 12

We decided for sure that we were going to head off this time! It’s a lovely spot here at Alau Beach Campground, but $44/night is a bit unnecessary when all we’re using is the pool, toilet and shower. Remember Woodgate during lockdown was $41/night with power and water in a full grassed caravan park! So we had breakfast, did our morning reading, and packed up the site.

Our campsite at Alau Beach -
Torres Strait in the background

Our last morning dip at Alau Beach!

Aug 11 travel plans update

 Hi all,

Just a quick review of where things are up to with border closures and our plans from here.

We intend to leave Umagico tomorrow August 12 at this stage God willing, and start heading back down south. The aim is to head south towards the bottom of the Cape, and then either south-west along Dixie Road from Artemis Station towards Normanton, or if the road turns out to be too bad to go all the way down to Mareeba and then take one of two roads directly west to Normanton. The first road is about 160km, the latter two options about 1200! But we're not in a hurry really. We do want to visit Lawn Hill which is close to the QLD-NT border, a little way down from the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The NT border is still open at the moment to those who aren't in a hotspot, which we aren't, so we hope this situation remains the case while we make our way down. If things change, we plan to explore more of western Queensland, in particular Longreach which we loved last time we visited. If the NT border does open then we'll go on through and try to see things we missed last year, in particular Kakadu, Arnhem Land and a mandatory revisit to Mataranka!

The WA border is not looking like opening anytime soon, so that part of the trip may unfortunately be off the cards unless things change. That will be a real pity, however there are still plenty of places to enjoy out here. And we did get to WA last year anyway.

Presuming the WA border remains closed, we will assess once we're in NT whether we come straight back down the middle down to SA or not. I think it's more likely we might go back into Queensland for the rest of the year and come back to Adelaide later on.

God bless!
Greg

Aug 8-11 (Day 189-193) - Bramwell Roadhouse to Umagico - the Tip!

Saturday August 8 - Bramwell to Umagico

At last we were on our way! Remembering we had planned to start driving up to the tip of the Cape on Sunday last week, it was considerably late, but we'd had a lovely time at Bramwell Roadhouse and had experiences we definitely would have missed if it hadn't been for the broken spring. We would not have travelled the Old Telegraph Track. The boys wouldn't have had all that time making their car tracks. We most likely would not have seen Weipa either. There is a silver lining to every cloud.

Nonetheless, the cloud had now passed and the tip of the Cape beckoned, so we hitched up and (gingerly) pulled the van out. But we had nothing to fear; the springs held all the way and are looking in good working order.

Leaving Bramwell Junction Roadhouse - our home for the past week!

Aug 3-7 (Day 184-188) - Bramwell Station

Monday Aug 3 – Bramwell Station

'Les' the mechanic hard at work
on another traveller's car!

We were woken suddenly from our semi-consciousness at about 7:50am by Les the mechanic calling out and asking if we were awake! Pyjama-clad, I stumbled out of the van bleary-eyed, trying to look as awake as possible, while Les detailed exactly what specifications he needed on the springs to be able to phone Weipa to see what they had.  After quickly dressing, taking requisite measurements and swilling down my morning coffee, I sat alongside Les while he spoke to a few people in Weipa, the upshot being there were no suitable springs (in fact no leaf springs at all, it seemed) in Weipa, and nothing suitable in Cairns.

Quick summary of August 3-6

At the time of writing it's August 7 about 8am and I'm in Weipa. We have signal so a quick summary of what's happened.

Monday we organised the springs. They're coming from Brisbane via Qantas Freight and are supposed to be in Weipa Thursday. The rest of Monday was a quiet day doing school work.

Tuesday we took the opportunity to drive along parts of the Old Telegraph Track! This was an unplanned event but given we were stuck without anything else to do it was worth doing. It was a very interesting experience, with some lovely isolated scenery and a couple of river crossings, the day finishing with some delightful swims at Fruit Bat Falls and Eliot Falls.

Wednesday was another quiet day around the camp site. Kids are having a great time entertaining themselves. Boys have made their own version of the Old Telegraph Track in the dirt with hills, tunnels, ditches full of water, even their own version of the Jardine River ferry!

Thursday we were told the springs were arriving so drove down to Weipa, did some shopping, I did some work (yay mobile signal again!), but then found the springs had been offloaded and weren't coming until Friday morning! So we stayed overnight at Weipa Caravan Park in a cabin. Evening cool off with a swim.

And here I am Friday refreshing the tracking page, hoping to goodness the springs leave today! At least there are two flights to Weipa today so if it misses the morning one there'll be time to ring them to make sure it gets on the midday flight.

-- Greg

Aug 2 (Day 184) - Bramwell Station to Bramwell Roadhouse

Well this was SUPPOSED to be the day we headed up to the tip! But the best laid plans of mice and men...

The day started with some welcome rain! We actually had some last night but there was a bit more this morning, probably only a couple of millimetres but it was lovely to cool the air down and dampen the dust slightly.

Ah! Some welcome rain!

Aug 1 (Day 183) - Coen to Bramwell Station

We had a pretty good sleep, although we all felt a bit sticky and dirty so had a quick morning swim in the Coen river. The water here was a bit deeper than the spot we’d stayed the night before.