The Lions Den

Ok. You’re going to travel 900klms in about six minutes, which is roughly 9,000klms an hour. So, secure any loose items and strap yourself in.

The Gulflander chased us all the way to Croydon. I must have got a dodgy lot of diesel back in Normanton, because she was giving the fuel gauge a real working over and clearly not happy. It was a stinker of a day and our free camp looked dry and dusty. Luckily, a large dam just out of town looked like an offer we couldn’t refuse. There was just enough flat ground to park our rigs and damn it, there was even a beach!!

We rotated between the water and the shelters for a few hours till the sun had ceased hostilities, and then mozied back into town. Croydon by definition (mine) is a village, but there working hard to attract the tourist dollar. They are in the process of restoring a colonial precinct and, given their gold rush history, there’s plenty to work with. Most work has been completed and it’s free and open.

A cool breeze blew in later that night and we were up early. We had toyed with the idea of doing the Undara lava tubes, but at $120 a throw….well, we let that one go through to the keeper. What we DID do was spend a night at an old gold mine called the Cumberland mine. Only a solitary chimney remains, but a small dam, built during those heady days, was enough to pull us off the road.

Cumberland Lagoon is only a few clicks west of Georgetown and the great attractor for local twitchers. However the bird action was not seen from the viewing platform.

A walk around the lagoon to the far side and over a small ridge and a flock of something or others had set themselves up nicely away from prying eyes. The tourist season ends in a few weeks. I guess they’ll return to the lagoon then.

Ken is a have-a-chat guy with other campers and I was making an effort to be a bit more social. So many were returning from the cape, each one providing Ken with some morsel of information or a nugget of insight, each stored away to be thrown like runes, Queequeg style, onto the table when we got to Atherton. Georgetown, Mount Surprise and Forty Mile came and went in a flash the next day, and we ended up at Archer Creek rest area for an overnighter. We’re pacing ourselves at around 250klm’s a day.

The Atherton Tablelands were just a smudge in the distance, but we knew the climb would be demanding. What we hadn’t counted on was the change in the weather. Having spent a month in the Queensland outback, the climb up to the tablelands found us in temperate rainforest with swirling fog and windy roads. Then, as soon as it arrived, it was gone and we were on the slide down towards Atherton. I was far enough ahead of Ken to do a load of washing at the laundromat before he caught up and, after a re-stock at an amazing, award winning, IGA, we headed to Rocky Creek campground for the weekend.

Between the AFL grand final on Saturday and an NRL preliminary final on the Sunday, we did what’s best describes as a waterfall crawl, a well advertised loop through the tableland country side. First stop was the Milanda Falls at, you guessed it, Milanda. Not only close to town, it doubles as the local swimming pool. We were still getting used to the cooler temperatures, so politely declined each other’s invitation to ‘take the waters’.

Just across the road was a rainforest walk, shady and cool. Another almost forgotten experience and a chance to look at some other wildlife apart from kangaroos and cockatoos.

Next stop was Milla Milla Falls, about 15 minutes further into the hinterland. Now THIS was a falls, and also another potential swimming hole. We were apparently just ahead of the tourist ‘rabble’, so we were able to quietly appreciate them as the carpark above us quickly filled.

A local had given us a heads-up about Zillie Falls. A case of ‘there’s more than meets the eye’, if you’re prepared to take the path less travelled and more tumbled. It was as treacherous as she had warned. The rock track were as slippery as marble and it took a while to pick my way down to the bottom. But the reward was also as good as she had hinted.

Three down and one to go, it was only five minutes before we were at Ellinjaa Falls. This involved a bit of a trek and as usual, all downhill there, all uphill on the way back. The sun was high in the sky by now and that required me to boulder hop across the river to the shady side of the falls to eliminate the glare factor.

With any passion, one always has an eye for an opportunity. On the climb out, I noticed the Ellinjaa Falls through a curtain of what could pass as bamboo. How very Japanese I thought. It was just a spur of the moment shot and I think it came out pretty good. Make a nice wall hanging. I had to leave Atherton that afternoon having had an external vent blow off the van two days ago. The replacement was waiting for me in Mareeba and the pick up was Sunday afternoon. Mareeba was a large main street town and after the exchange of goods and payment, I spent the night at an RV parking area just behind the shops and we re-grouped the next morning.

We had been pitched that The Lions Den served the best pizzas in the universe and was just outside Cooktown. Well, never stand between Ken and gourmet food they told me, so a couple of hours later, there we were.

Now you’d have to wonder what the inspiration was to put a hotel in the middle of a cow paddock surrounded by not much else, BUT did it have character AND the pizzas looked amazing. Ken took the option of air con in the caravan park and I free camped just outside. We missed their 150th birthday by only a few weeks. That would have been some party. Only a few clicks off the road to Cooktown and well worth the diversion.

PS. The runes say we’re going to give the cape a crack!!