Day 16 – 25/07/09
Left CBL about 8 am and the track out to the main road didn't seem nearly as bad as it was the previous afternoon when we came in. Stopped at Bramwell Junction for morning tea. We left Bramwell Junction and turned off the main road after about 65 kms onto Frenchmans Track to get to Chilli Beach. The was pretty similar to the OTT with a couple of creek crossings but no real worries until we got to the Pascoe River. Just before the river we caught up to a group of three cars who were just out for a look and not going across the river, this slowed us down enough that a tag along tour of 8 vehicles coming the other way managed to get to the crossing before us.
This appeared to be their first major creek crossing as they had human sacrifices to the crocodile gods marking the fairly evident crossing route. Their lead ute crossed and then found he had a busted rear shocky. We had to park behind the 3 other cars so that the tour group could pass us. The actual crossing was pretty easy and not all that deep but the exit (our entrance) onto the west side of the river was pretty steep, rutted and eaten out. They ended up getting all their cars across but in the process had blocked us in and then they started to fix the lead ute while we were still blocked in. After asking for them to allow us to pass they rearranged their parking arrangement and we were able to slip through. Because of the parking hassles we had got out of our normal creek crossing order of Richard followed by me in the Pajero and Brett following and ended up with Brett followed by Richard and the Pajero coming along at the tail. Brett and Richard navigated the rough entrance to the creek pretty well and then I followed very slowly, we had a bit of an audience at this time. I think at this stage I put a dent in the bottom of my auxiliary tank while I has trying to manoeuvre around the tag along cars but I made it down to the river with no real problems with some expert guidance from Ross and then quickly put the water bra on to to be sure and headed off across the river with Ross standing on the back bumper and holding onto the roof rack. We stopped a bit further on for a quick bite of lunch. Somewhere before the river crossing the fuel economy readout on the Pajero showed I had used a fair bit of fuel (there was some sandy patches although I didn't think it was that tough at the time) , so I tested that the pump was working for the auxiliary tank and all was fine.
Once over the Pascoe River it wasn't far to the main road into Chilli Beach and we found it was pretty easy going. At chilli Beach the wind from CBL seemed to have followed us, but after looking around the camp site we were able to find a spot where we were all pretty well protected from the wind and set up camp. Brett went for the Bull bar supported cover for his swag and is going to look into getting something made up properly instead of just jamming the shade cloth under the bonnet as its closed.
We then went walking on Chilli Beach and took a few photos and chilled out for the rest of the day.
Day 17 – 26/07/09
We left Chilli Beach just after 8 am and headed back to the Development Road and continued onto the Archer River Roadhouse for morning tea. Then onto Coen where we fuelled up and got a few supplies before headin out to the Musgrave River Roadhouse where we turned off for Lakefield National Park. The road in was pretty good and we stopped along the way to have a look at the termite mounds on the Nifold Plain.
We also stopped at Red Lilly and White Lilly Lagoons but they were pretty dry and there was only a few white lillies on display.
We continued onto Kalpowar Crossing where we were lucky to get one of the last camp sites. After setting up camp we had a bit of a walk around the crossing itself
and a bit later on saw our first crocodile of the trip, a freshwater crocodile sunning himself on the rocks.
That meant the only option for getting clean was the cold showers in the amenities block and they were pretty cold and cramped and dark (I needed my head lamp just to have a shower).
Day 18 – 27/07/09
We left Kalpowar about 8:30 am and asked someone at the Ranger hut about Cape Melville and he said it was all OK. On the way out we saw a Green Python at the side of the road
and stopped for photos, Ross became a snake charmer and held the Python for some closer photos. We drove across Kalpowar crossing and headed towards Cape Melville National Park, however when we got to the turn off the road was closed. Very Pissed Off. So we continued onto to Bathurst Head to find somewhere to camp for the night. The road in wasn't too hard but there were quite a few detours into the bush to doge some very muddy looking spots.
When we got to the Camping area we set up in the shade of a tree.
There was a nearby camp of fishermen who had their generator running, but we figured they would be polite and turn it off in the evening – No such luck. A group of trail bikers turned up just before dark and proceeded to noisily set-up camp, however after a few drinks and dinner they seemed to fade out only to leave that bloody generator.
We had a bit of a fish but unfortunately they weren't biting. This was Brett's last night as he had to start heading back to Brisbane and work the following morning.
We started a camp fire with the last of the wood I had bought from home and chatted for awhile hoping the generator would go off, before we went to bed.
Day 19 – 28/07/09
Brett headed off first thing in the morning but we were going to stay on for another day and explore the area. I went for a very long walk (9.5 kms return) around the headlands and beaches to Bathurst Head proper and there was some beautiful scenery on the way.
The walk was great although very tiring, along the way I saw some dolphins grazing on a school of bait fish, there was also something pretty fast feeding on the bait fish as occasionally there would be an explosion of bait fish into the air as something hit them going pretty quickly.
I think I walked around to what the GPS termed as officially Bathurst Head, there were another few groups of people, fishermen by the look of it, camped here.
The walk back to camp seemed to take about twice as long as the walk out, so I had a late lunch and a bit of a rest for the arvo. Apparently, when the bikers packed up they had trouble folding up a tent that was the same as mine, so they came over to get some hints from me but I had gone for a walk, so Richard gave them a hand.
Richard and Ross tried the fishing caper again but didn't catch anything. While going for a walk looking for a place to relocate my tent away from the noisy generator one of our neighbours offered us some rock oysters they had collected earlier in the day. As I'm not an oyster person, Richard and Ross benefited greatly and enjoyed a very tasty entree.
I moved my tent further back, up the track hoping to get away from the generator, however one of the other sets of campers had another generator going, thankfully they turned it off at midnight.
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