The Roaming 5: 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.

Ah! What a way to start the day!

The boys hard at work with their car track

We discovered last night that the mechanic had given us the wrong bolt for the jockey wheel – he’d supplied us with a metric bolt instead of an imperial. The old handle had 15 threads, while the new bolt he’d given us had 18 threads for the same length bolt. The only way he’d been able to get it to ‘fit’ was through brute force. He really epitomised the 'bush mechanic'! This meant the thread in the nut was damaged and we couldn’t get it to go in. So we’d had to support the front of the caravan with a jack (in addition to the front legs). So I rang the mechanic about the bolt and he said to just bring it back – no apology or anything. So we packed up the site while the boys took videos of the car tracks they’d made in the gully last night.

We drove into Coen where the mechanic, after several excuses about us not tightening it enough, the nut thread being damaged (his doing) and other such things, went and found a u-bolt which had the correct thread so we were back in business.

'Baz' the bush mechanic (well
that's our name for him)!

Today is also the 6 month anniversary of us starting our trip, which means we’re just past the half way mark. This made us feel a bit melancholy to consider that by the time we’ve done our trip so far all over again the kids will be sitting in a school room and life will be back to normal. Anyway nothing in this life lasts forever which is why the opportunity of eternal life in God's kingdom on earth is such a blessing to look forward to! So we just have to make sure we make the most of it while we’ve got this special opportunity. We topped up the fuel tank ($1.75/L) and got some iced coffee and strawberry milks from the Coen Independent Store to celebrate!

We headed north out of Coen, and once we passed the airport we were back onto dirt road.

After a while we reached Archer River Station where we again topped up with fuel ($1.70/L – not too bad considering how far it has to come and the types of roads on which the trucks have to travel!). There were some lovely well-kept horses at this station and the kids enjoyed a pat. We collected some ‘6 month anniversary celebration’ Billabong icecreams. We also had a quick selfie by the sign in a salute to several of the ‘Archer’ families we know, so far away back in Adelaide!

Horse fun at Archer River Roadhouse

The start of the road to the Tip!

Most of the day was driving from here. We were on the road to Weipa (on the west coast) at this stage, and took a right turn up to Cape York, and checked the tyres to make sure they weren’t overheating, which they weren’t. We were running about 26-30psi which was OK for dirt but a bit low for bitumen. Driving north up the unsealed road towards Bramwell station, the road was mainly dirt. It was generally in pretty good condition, although there were some patches of reasonable corrugations. The other challenge with this road (and probably others like it) are that there are periodic floodways which are often signposted as ‘Dip’, however the actual size of the dip can vary immensely, from an almost indiscernible depression in the road, through to smooth concrete-lined fords with a gentle sweeping grade, right through to quite sharp, approaching v-shaped gullies with rocks in the bottom (v-shaped as far as a vehicle approaching at 30kph goes). Most of the time we were doing around 80kph so we got accustomed to slowing down to about 50-60 for these, and then once in a while you’d have to slow down a lot because only when you got quite close could you see the depression actually had a steep bottom. There was even one which was not signposted AT ALL and was probably one of the worst of the lot, so we hit that one reasonably hard (which we believe was the cause of a problem we’ll talk about a bit later on…).

It was interesting to note that the trees on the western side of the road almost exclusively, were coated with red dust from the road. This is presumably because the trade winds blow from the south east and therefore the dust is always blown to the west. There was a marked difference between the green foliage on the right and the red on the left – a bit like maritime navigation beacons I guess (but only when travelling north!).

Red to the left, green to the right!

The only other point of interest was driving through a scrub fire which was burning close to the right hand side of the road. It was probably just aboriginal burnings of the scrub, but as we saw in Litchfield National Park last year, the whistling kites hovered around the fire with great interest. We learned last year that the kites, when they see a fire, come in for a feed on any small creatures trying to escape the blaze, and even go so far as to pick up burning sticks, drop them in unburnt forest to spread the fire, to have more of a feed!

We were intending to stop somewhere for lunch but we were so close to Bramwell Station that we just pushed on and stopped there for the night.

A bit about Bramwell Station

Bramwell Station sits at an important junction on the road up to the tip of the Cape. If you continue straight ahead, you join the ‘Old Telegraph Track’, which is a very rough 4WD track that follows the old telegraph line installed to provide communications up to the top of Cape York Peninsula. However if you turn the east of Bramwell Station you travel up ‘Bamaga Road’, which is a better quality road which bypasses the Old Telegraph Track in a rough 'S'-shape, first heading east, then around back to the west where it joins the Old Telegraph Track for a while, and then departs further west before coming back around to the east at the Jardine River, which is where the Old Telegraph Track ends these days (apparently vehicles used to be able to drive across the Jardine River but the crossing is very bad these days).

Bramwell Station is about 1330 square kilometres in size, and they run about 5000 head of cattle. They also own the roadhouse several kilometres up the road, and they also have a third business where they provide road maintenance services to the Cook Shire to maintain the main road with graders and rollers. So this equipment all lives at the station and the workers presumably stay in some of the on-site accommodation.

As we booked in we found another gentleman considering booking in was the same nice chap who had stopped for us just before Coen after we hit the kangaroo! We paid the $25 for the night, and also paid for tea. They provide a basic dinner for those who want it – steak or chicken parmigiana, with either vegies or salad. That’s it. No fifty menu options to argue over and take 15 minutes to decide – the lack of choice was actually quite nice for a change. We set up camp and I had a bit of a sleep.

Come 6pm we headed across to the communal eating area (which was just a large verandah attached to the bar with a concrete floor).The dinner started with a talk from one of the staff about Bramwell Station, including the information in the call-out box further up. After the talk we enjoyed our dinner and got chatting to the family at the other end of our table. This was a gentleman in his late 40’s and his three sons (also 10,12,14). His wife passed away about 10 years prior and he was now doing all he could to bring up his three boys. They had visited the tip and were on their way back down, so he gave us some tips on road conditions and recommendations.