Philip A On the way to Cape York

Did the "five beaches 'drive from Somerset today . It was reasonably easy with a few gnarly climb outs and soft tracks.
Saw the fiecest looking snakke I have ever seen which lunged at the car. Turns out it is a black headed Python, which puts on a great show of hissing and lunging but is a pussy if picked up.

It is all pretty bleak over on the east coast with a strong wind blowing and showers, and the beaches are covered in flotsom and jetsam. It would not be a great place to be shipwrecked.
Regards Philip A

Well here we are in Cooktown, after a quick pass through The Lakefield National park and down the Battlecamp road which was quuite good. We were not impressed with the East Coast of Cape York, as the gales blew and it was very bleak nso we didn't do Captain Billies Landing or Chillie beach.
Again national parks went berserk in Lakefield and placed bollards everywhere at Kalpower. This gave us the irrits at Twin falls as we constantly had to fend off people wanting our campsite as we were stuck in a little side camping area fenced off from the main site.
So we continued to a great campsite at Endeavour Falls, shared by a 38A ( towing a Kimberley Kamper - a 5k car towing an 80K van, Hmmm), one of the only RRs we have seen on the whole trip.
I was talking to some blokes in Cooktown and they said they couldn't do the five beaches drive at Somerset as there were 8x 4WD stuck on the approach track . I found this hard to believe as the old Rangie just waddled over the tracks and climb outs, although it was deep sand.
Nolans Brook is now at 28 cars drowned as at 3 days ago.
We drove to Elim beach yesterday and drove along the beach. Very easy exit and firm wet sand meant I didn't have to drop pressures.
Tomorrow I should pick up my new fan and then the Daintree road which is pretty easy, although the CREB track and the Maytown track are closed still.
Regards Philip A

Thanks for your updates. Brings back memories of my CY trip last year. I got badly bogged at the start of the 5 beaches run in my D3. Took us 12 hours :eek::eek::eek: to extract ourselves!! Nobody came pass as it was late afternoon when we got stuck.. Only recovery gear we had was 2 shovels a bottle jack and the OEM crappy sissor jack.

Photos of our trip in the Qld trip reports section.

Enjoying the read Phillip keep it coming.

BTW I was very lucky with the fan. NATRAD rads must be strong as the fan blades did get caught between 2 core rows but the cores were stronger than the fan.
I have a lovely copper swirl mark on the rad core from the fan reversing itself and then rubbing a circular path.
Ah well live and learn. And I had a blind made up up that Sams? creek 360degree turn with one side in deep water tricked me. That is in one of the pics.
Regards Philip A

Phillip,

It was great to meet you at Palm Creek and again at Elliot Falls. I am currently in Hervey Bay on my way back south. Will do a full writeup with pics when back home.

It is good to hear that the rest of your trip went well.

Cheers,
Matt.

Well Matt , it was great to meet you too. I am jealous of the D3 with lift.

We took the Daintree track down from Cooktown to Daintree and stayed at Cape Trib for a few days and went snorkelling to Mackay reef. What a great reef, with giant clams bigger than I have ever seen.

The Daintree is now a Nissan Micra track from Cooktown down to Wujal Wujal but still a bit tough and steep down from there. We saw about a 5 metre croc on the mudbank near WW . The hills are really steep and on one downhill , I was in first high, brakes on plus handbrake having not thought to select low ratio at the top.

Looks like most of the hard stuff is over now so this is probably the last post. Hope is has been not too boring.
Regards philip A

Enjoyed that heaps and it brought back lots of memories. Both my auxiliary fans stopped working after the creek crossings - shorted out although not operating at the time. Strange...
Pity you skipped Chilli Beach as we really liked it, but I expect it could be rather ordinary in bad weather.

Great read. I'm heading up in 2 weeks.

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Originally Posted by sclarke

Great read. I'm heading up in 2 weeks.

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Drop in and say g'day if you get a chance



Cheers
Chris