Moreton Telegraph Station Qld Wednesday 10 August 2022 (2 nights)

 Moreton Telegraph Station Qld Wednesday 10 August 2022 (2 nights)

Wednesday

I can’t say why, but Weipa is a place I have always wanted to visit. It is of course a purpose built mining town from the 1960s when A geologist, Embly, 'discovered' near pure bauxite, the very stuff that Matthew Flinders had pointed out as a cliff face with a really unusual red and mauve colour as he cruised by some 150 years earlier. Our Hotel I felt was fairly tired, having been built in 1973, but it was comfortable and the food excellent. 

Blue Winged Kingfisher. Weipa Qld

Apart from mining bauxite, there’s not a lot else. Fishing in the river and crocodile watching are the main pastimes. We went on an excellent crocodile tour with a very knowledgable fellow, and ex-miner, who told us all about the history and what they were doing now, and the wildlife, which comes in the form of birds and crocs. 

The crocs were just laying around on the mudflats next to the water waiting to be snapped. There was one every 100 meters of so, all females except the one big male. They are so regular in their habits that all have names. There were lots of birds flying about but nothing terribly exciting. We spend most of our time up Roberts Creek, where if you are so inclined you can park your yacht for free all year round and take the tinny to work. When we headed back across the town the wind had sprung up and we drove into a decent chop, most of us getting a decent soaking for our trouble. Not to worry, everything dries in 10 minutes in the sun and wind.

Crocodile Weipa Qld

We visited the cultural centre where we had a cuppa and wandered around looking at the displays of Weipa history, bauxite mining and indigenous culture.

View looking out from the Cultural Centre. Weipa  Qld

This was followed by some free time in ‘town’. Town consists of a small mall with Woolies, a pharmacy and a newsagent. And a bottle shop course. Not even a coffee shop, it having expired some year ago. The post office was across the carpark, in a tin shed.

Downtown Weipa Qld

Mandatory stop to look at a boat being filled up with bauxite. Now that I've seen Weipa, I will never need to go there again!

Filling up the boat with bauxite. Weipa Qld

We drove out of town to a place where there are two lakes. We stopped next to Lake Patricia and had a nice lunch of salmon on sourdough with capers and condiments. Others had the tapas, but I was quite happy with the smoked salmon. Thank you.

Lake Patricia. Weipa Qld

We left at 1:30pm and headed to Moreton Telegraph Station, which was about two hours away.

Moreton Telegraph Station is now just a place called that. We stopped at the Wenlock River crossing to gawp at a sign stuck way up in a tree. Basically it says that the signee was right there in a boat at 14.6 metres above the bridge during the floods of 2003. The town / place / camp is just over the bridge and to the left.

Check out the small white sign up the tree. Wenlock River. Moreton Telegraph Station Qld

Our stay is at the Moreton Wilderness Lodge, owned by Outback Spirit, so it is a slightly more relaxed stay than being in a hotel or wherever. There is the normal large verandah style lounge and dining area, and our rooms out the back. Our ‘room’, and it just qualifies, is a Deluxe Donga. There are three to a pod, each room has a double bed and an ensuite and seating outside on the pod-long deck. 

They have a fire-pit, and the chef that used to be at Seven Spirit Bay, and an open bar from 5:30 till the end of dinner....

We sat around the first, unusual as it was a big circle fire pit with a smaller circle fire pit off to one side. We sat around drinking cold white wine and telling tales about our travels, when the manager of the lodge, Grant places a round share-plough like BBQ plate over the small fire. It now started to make sense. Next thing the chef has arrived with hot lodge-made Turkish bread and while we are eating and quaffing, he loads up the BBQ plate with a whole pile of kangaroo kebabs. Soon enough they are being handed around and they are delicious. Nothing like eating one of our nation’s faunal emblems, done just so. I think I had three, or was that glasses of wine, or both?

Then on to dinner. We had preordered this a few days ago and had chosen lamb, as a change from the ever present and ever delicious barramundi. It was followed by a dessert of a chocolate cake / slice that just exploded with flavour and richness. Thank goodness it was a small serve!

Thursday

A day of rest. We did a lap of the 2.5km sightseeing track, the sights consisting of the Barra Hole, a section of the Wenlock river where barramundi are found, and Cave Creek. Oh and a Lagoon was on a sign but was not mentioned even as we walked past. Probably infested with crocs.

The Cave Creek is an interesting formation where the creek flows under over-arching rocks and looks to be quite deep. You could be forgiven for being tempted to jump in, but not knowing how deep it is, or just how to get out again, you err on the side of caution. The fact that there just may well be a resident crocodile is also a bit of a turn-off.

We were going do a bit of a drive up the track but our driver and guide is not feeling too great and so it was declared that we would all have the day off. Judy and I walked up to the public campground, had a look at the tiny museum, did another lap of the track and retired until campfire time.

Sat around the fire drinking wine and eating garlic prawns and chorizo skewers. Moved up to dinner at 630 and were served a beautifully BBQd steak and chicken dinner.

Weipa Qld Tuesday 9Aug2022

 Weipa Qld Tuesday 9Aug2022

An early start and back on the track heading for Weipa, way up the Cape and on the Gulf of Carpentaria side. Our first stop was at the Musgrave Telegraph Station, the only surviving building from the six or seven that made up the Queensland version of the Overland Telegraph, which went from Cardwell to the Tip and via an undersea cable to Batavia. Today the Musgrave Telegraph station is the private residence of the folks who run the busy roadhouse / cafe / camping ground. 

Overland Telegraph Station c1880 Musgrave Qld

ExOverland Telegraph Station. Musgrave Qld

On we pushed along mostly fairly rough dirt road, our mouths watering at the though of our lunch at Archer River Crossing. We had preordered hamburgers the day before and been told they were the-best-in-the-world.  Archer River Crossing is another of the few roadhouses along the Peninsular Development Road and you’d be mad not to pull in and refuel at least. Even if diesel is $2.80 a litre its a long way to anywhere and you can never be sure that they actually have your particular fuel when you arrive. The Crossing is a hive of activity as they are building a bridge, their first one, and all the associated roadworks that go with it. This is largely flat country where it rains half a metre during the wet and all the river just swell to huge proportions as the water races to to the Coral Sea Sea.

Archer River Road House. Qld

Apart from hamburgers, they have hot chips, and a variety of cold drinks, and not a lot else. We hadn’t ordered chips so we had a soggy, bland hamburger and a nice cold drink. 

"World Famous" Archer River Road House soggyburger. Qld
Nice drink though.

From there to Coen (another of the OT station towns) where we stopped at the Heritage House museum for a break and a cup of tea. Main claim to fame in the area these days is the Sexchange Hotel, aka the Exchange Hotel, where some wit of bygone days climbed onto the roof and added an ’S’ in front of the hotels name displayed along the ridge capping. Heritage House and the grounds housed a collection of museum-abila mostly from more recent times that the OT.

Heritage House. Museum and Picnic area. Coen Qld

One half of a twin five-head stamper battery. Heritage House Museum. Coen Qld

They kept going on about this bird -  a Golden Shouldered Parrot
We never saw one so I took a snap of a snap just to amuse the bird-fanciers on the tour
Heritage House. Museum. Coen Qld

Back on the road again and we made it into Weipa at about 3pm after a long day in the truck. Thankfully we were in one of the middle seats halfway between the front and back wheels, which is nowhere near as jarring as the very back or front seats.

Wiepa Qld. Best view from a distance....

Lotus Bird Lodge, Cape York Qld Sunday 7 Aug 2022 (2nights)

Lotus Bird Lodge, Cape York Qld Sunday 7 Aug 2022 (2 nights)

Sunday

Another early start and this time we turned right out of town and headed north. A new road and a new adventure for us.

Out onto the dirt roads and after some time we stopped at the Old Laura Homestead, the first cattle run on Cape York, established to supply the gold fields on the Palmer River and  Laura township with fresh meat. The run changed hands many years ago and the new owners built themselves a new homestead and abandoned this one. It has since been fixed-up a bit and stabilised and it is now a major tourist attraction in the parts.

Old Laura Homestead, Qld

Outbuilding. Old Laura Homestead Qld

From the old homestead we travelled further north to Laura the town proper, established in 1880 or so when the gold fever struck the area. About all that is left is the Laura Cultural and Information centre, which is quite good, has a very informative history of the district and some good artwork. It is owned and operated by the Aboriginal Land Council and the current manager also doubles as the tour guide for our trip to the Quinkan Galleries, a group of rock formations some way out of town, featuring Aboriginal rock paintings. Outback Spirit have their own ex-army based Land Rovers come safari trucks, in which we are taken out of town and way out onto one of the pastoral leases. 

Quinkan Gallery, Laura Qld

The gallery we have been taken to is Mushroom Rock and Gene,

Gene. Quinkan Gallery Guide Laura Qld

 

our guide is very informative and entertaining in his description of the artwork and the stories that they tell.  The thing is that nobody really knows the story of a painting in a cave a hundred years old, let alone one potentially 30-40 thousand years old. We gathered the impression that Gene wasn’t fully initiated and as such wasn’t privy to the full stories, and even if he was, he wouldn’t be able to tell us as we are at the bottom of the need-to-know ladder. Some of the figures are really well depicted and preserved including one or two Quinkan, their spirit being. We also picked up that if a figure was depicted upside down, it meant that they were deceased, and on the solid pictures of an animal, such as a wallaby, a waist line / belt meant that it was the artist’s totem.

Quinkan Gallery Guide Laura Qld

Quinkan Gallery Guide Laura Qld

Before we left we had lunch on the verandah, this one a salad and cold meat affair provided by our tour guides.

And then back into the coach for a two-hour drive to a rest stop at the Kalpower Crossing on the Normanby River, a similar sort of arrangement as the Cahills Crossing as you cross from Kakadu into Arnhem Land where there are a heap of crocodiles, fish and always, always a daredevil fisherman. There are also some exposed fossils to be seen in and on the rocks in the dry parts of the riverbed. They look like large trilobites and in both of the ones we saw there is a good amount of opalisation evident.

Kalpower Crossing, Normnby River Qld

Back on the road again and another lengthy trip brought us finally to ‘The Jewel in the Crown’ of Cape York, the Lotus Bird Lodge. Established some 20 odd years ago by an American family as the ultimate bird-o-files getaway, it never really got established and was abandoned after a few seasons. The current owners bought it after 3 years of being closed and spend six months getting it going again. It is built on the edge of a Lagoon, actually a Billabong, but that’s OK, they were American, which is a waterlily covered sheet of water and a magnet for birdlife, both local and migratory. Naturally, we are constantly warned of the presence of crocodiles that live in it and aren’t averse to leaping out at bird-gazers. We were also warned about the many snakes that slither about the place, which include the obligatory three most venomous in the world and a couple of almost harmless ones. Take a torch at night, keep you eyes open, stay 10 metres from the water and tread carefully, is the mantra. Oh and keep a lookout for the wild pigs and of course the wild bulls, which will charge at you. Apparently they are all hanging around and getting feisty because there is a nice lady cow wandering around.

There is a central eating and meeting building, open on all sides except the kitchen, and ten timber cabins spread around the edge of the billabong. All the timbers were apparently cut from trees found on the property. It has a real authentic, casual but quality feel about it.

The owner is a bit of a character who after 20 years running the place is ready to sell and retire. The Outback Spirit people have made an offer which he has accepted, but I heard on the side that they haven’t actually sent or signed a contract yet. It would fit perfectly into the Outback Spirt portfolio, but as that company has been bought out by someone else, its anyones guess what will happen.

Our cabin is comfortable and open at the top on both ends. Screen doors and windows all around. Everything is open and with the ceiling fan running, no need for air conditioners.

The only drawback is that you can't have a light on after dark, not even a computer screen, because despite the fly screens, the place is will be full off little black flying things in an instant.

Monday

We were granted a sleep-in this morning, breakfast wasn’t ‘till 7:30 and no bags to pack and put out!

Mind you the noise from the birds in the billabong was enough to wake the dead as they started their cacophony with the sun rising blood-red behind them.

First activity after breakfast was a guided tour around the billabong, not that you need a guide as they have provided an info card and map. Items of interest are tagged but the central attraction is the water with its snow-drop lotus flowers and heaps of birds. Now I’m no ‘birdie but even I saw egrets, magpie geese, jacana and maybe a jabiru or two. My mission is to get a decent photo of a bird or birds taking off, where they leave the line of splashes on the water-surface with their wing-tips as they climb into the sky.

Today is however a big day for both of us: our first helicopter flight! A forty five minute scenic tour of the national park and the lake lands.

Due to weight distribution requirements, we were all weighed individually and then split into groups of three. Judy went first, on the 12 o’clock flight, and while not terrified, was happy to be back on terra ferma. Did I mention that this helicopter has no doors, and it feels as if you sit almost outside the cabin. I went on the 2pm flight and to say I was a little underwhelmed would sum it up really. I can't say what I was expecting but it just wasn’t the ‘buzz’ I had in mind. We flew around and around and checked out a few billabongs for crocodile, of which I saw and snapped two. We snapped campers on the crocodile infested river banks and we snapped rivers, both wet and dry, and dirt roads and trees and cattle. Our turnaround point was the entrance to the Hunter River at Princess Charlotte Bay, where the snake-like or should I say dreamtime serpent shape of the rivers made for great viewing.

What’s that? Its ice-cream o’clock apparently....

Lotus Lagoon, Lotus Bird Lodge Qld

Garry. Lotus Bird Lodge Qld

Wild Bull. Lotus Bird Lodge Qld

The Lodges. Lotus Bird Lodge Qld

Departure Lounge. Lotus Bird Lodge Qld

Judy about take her first ever helicopter flight. Lotus Bird Lodge Qld

Up, up and away! Lotus Bird Lodge Qld

What went up, had to finally come down again.

Phew! Made it back to earth,

Judy The Brave. Good in her.

A crocodile in one of the lagoons nearby. Lotus Bird Lodge Qld

Princess Charlotte Bay Qld

Meandering river, Princess Charlotte Bay Qld

Oh look, a Christmas tree. You have to use your imagination...

The road to Lotus Bird Lodge Qld

Cooktown Qld Saturday 6Aug2022

 Cooktown Qld Saturday 6 Aug 2022

From the Heritage Lodge and Spa at Diwan, right over the Cooper Creek from the Cooper Creek Wilderness Rainforest Walk, we headed north with a first stop at Cape Tribulation Beach. This iconic part of the Daintree hasn’t changed even one speck since we were here first in 2004 except that the Cassowary we saw that first time then was again absent, the little scamp. I really don’t know why its such a focal point, the beach is barely more than a tidal mudflat and as the photos attest, its fairly featureless. It’s main claim to fame is that the Cape was named by Captain Cook after he carelessly ran into a random reef after sailing safely in uncharted waters for three years. Or then again it might be popular because its as far as you can drive in an ordinary car (rental cars excepted - they can go anywhere) before you hit the Bloomfield Track - the short-cut through to Cooktown. The highway route is about 300km longer.

Cape Tribulation Qld

Our bus is of course a huge Mercedes 4x4 truck with a people-pod on the back and can, literally, go anywhere. Its just as well because even though the dirt road surface is in good condition, it has some really steep (1:4) gradients complete with three-point turns up and across the Davidson ranges. Its only about 30km long but takes almost two hours, by which time we have emerged from the ranges and the rainforest and stopped at Wajul Wajul, an Aboriginal community town, which also has a waterfall to go and visit.

Wajul Waterfall Qld

We clambered out to the falls, about a 100m over fairly rough rocks in the care of Francis, our guide. The falls are only small at this time of the year, being the dry season, but good enough for the obligatory snap or ten.

Further north we stopped at The Lion’s Den hotel for lunch. This is a very old bush pub from the late 1800s. It is so named, so the story goes, and I have to remind you that most of them are just that, stories, that some preacher fellow saw one of the young men, named Daniel, in the distance looking wistfully down into the mouth of the local tin mine and was prompted to think of a biblical story concerning Daniel and the mouth of the lions den. Or something like that. Apart from being of the extended ramshackle architecture school, it is covered in hand-writing in every conceivable place, except the toilets where it is barred. This story, which is quite believable, is that in the early days the tin miners would bring their pay cheque (a piece of paper with words that indicated that the person who signed it owed the person carrying it the prescribed amount of money written in full on the front, their pay, usually a month’s worth). Now as money as such was of little use to people in these places and certainly no safe place to keep it, the normal practice was to give your cheque to the hotelier who would keep tabs of your drinking expenses and pay you the balance when you left. Now, being of a distrusting nature, the workers took to keeping their own ledgers by writing down their pay and the cost of their drinks on the walls next to their favourite seat. Its just a quirky little thing that  I've seen in other remote places, and of course now every wanna-be vandal wants to write some pithy witticism to show they have been this way. Only now you get to buy a marker pen to do it and the money goes to the local charity, I think fire brigade in this case.

Lions Den Pub. Cooktown Qld

Lions Den Pub. Cooktown Qld

On toward Cooktown until we at last rejoin that main highway for the last few kilometres into town. But first a stop at Black Mountain, a huge mountain sized pile of black lava rocks that cooled under the earths surface and was later exposed by weathering. The blackness comes from a fungus that grows on the rock. It’s the only one around and is pretty impressive to look at.

Black Mountain. Cooktown Qld

On we go, lobbing into Cooktown at about 2pm, where we are given  quick tour and then dropped at the museum, which used to be a Catholic Convent from the 1880s. It centrepiece is an anchor and a canon from the Endeavour, recovered from the reef where Cook parked his boat for 24 hours 252 years ago. After a single lap of the uninspiring museum collection, we watched the slide show for another 55 minutes when we were finally picked up and taken to the botanic gardens, also established in the 1880s but abandoned after the town went belly-up when the gold ran out. It was reestablished in the 1960s and despite cyclones and droughts and things, is not in too bad a condition, a credit to the local populace.

Finally at last, after 4pm we are dropped at our hotel, where we all headed straight for the pool, which was just fabulous. It was damn hard to tear oneself out of that beautiful cool water and get ready for the sunset tour. This was conducted by one of the local tour people in a small bus, which took us up to the top of grassy-hill, which is now overgrown with trees and shrubs since they literally killed off the aboriginals who uses to keep the country clean and green via the use of fire-stick farming. At the top is a lovely 360º view and a really well looked after lighthouse. The lighthouse was one of six prefabricated in England and shipped out here and is one of only two left. The authorities replaced it years ago with location beckons on each of the reefs, and wanted to pull it down. I'm so glad that the local people put up a fight and saved it, and restored it, and keep it going. It is lit every night and is still used by some for navigation.

The sunset itself was a bit of a failure, but later as we were walking to dinner, that afterglow came up and was just fantastic to sit and watch. I’lll get a snap - next time.

Captain Cook's canon. Cooktown Qld

 

Lighthouse Qld

Sunset. Cooktown Qld

Daintree Qld Friday 5 Aug 2022

 Daintree Qld Friday 5 Aug 2022

Shortest of all trips from Port Douglas to Mossman Gorge where we went on an Aboriginal Tour, the same one we did a few years back. 

Mossman Gorge

Aboriginal Guide telling us all about ochre and face painting

And then up to Daintree where we went on a Crocodile Tour with Bill Belcher, who even though it was a ‘crocodile’ cruise, that day he unfortunately ignored any other wildlife around with his obsession with finding ‘scarface’. Lunch was nice however and I found the River Train that went missing after being tied up near the ferry for years. It seems the Belchers that run this Croc Cruise wanted the licence to operate on the river so they bought the old River Train, but then they had to remove the said River Train from the river. Rather than take it straight to the dump, the lady decided to incorporate it into the cafe part of the business and so its been saved. The River train was conceived and built by one of the locals, it had five small raft like craft chained together in a caravan and decked out like a floating Chinese pagoda / train thing. No sooner had he floated it when he lost interest and sold up and went to live in Thailand. It languished on the river for years and years, but last time we went through it had gone. And now I know where it is.

Section of the River Train

After lunch we drove further up into the Daintree, to Coopers Creek where we went to a privately owned part of the rainforest. The couple living there had become experts on all things rainforest over 30 odd years and we were to be taken on a walk-in tour of the forrest. We chose the lady and and I'm glad we did, she was very informative and easy to listen to. We stopped at nearly every single tree over a one and a half hour period, being told all kinds of wonderful and weird things about trees, plants, animals, insects, people etc. I'll never be able to walk past trees again and not wonder what each ones story is.

How many insects can you see? A tree in the Daintree Rain Forest

We had dinner and stayed the night at the Heritage Daintree Resort which was right in the rainforest, which was ‘OK’. The thing is everything in a rainforest is always dark and damp and it must be a nightmare to keep on top of everything that’s needed for an accommodation house and keep the jungle at bay.