QLD - Cape York - A yarn (and great description) from Taz in Canberra
From "The Wilsons"
There comes a point in every touring holiday when you have to face the fact that the holiday has passed its farthest point and you have turned for home. When this realisation dawns on me, I have a generally miserable day - well first few hours anyway - before I snap out of it and set about making the most of the return journey.

The "turning for home blues" were never more apparent to me than on an adventure trek to Cape York last year. I guess that when your destination has been the northernmost tip of mainland Australia, and there is only one road in, as soon as you depart, there is no denying the fact that you are heading home.

Contrary to the advice of all the so-called experts, I (a euphemism for my wife) had packed up our automatic 4WD and our camper trailer, loaded up the family, wife and three children aged 10, 11 and 13, and set out unaccompanied to tackle the Cape. On our way north, we had pleasant stopovers at the Bunya Mountains, Cania Gorge, Eungella and Cape Tribulation before arriving at Cooktown. We saw this as the start point of the real adventure.

Cooktown is a fascinating place with a real aura of history about it. Apart from the historic buildings and precincts, there are also places of amazing natural beauty such as Mt Cook National Park and Grassy Hill. As keen birdwatchers, we were enthralled with the diversity of bird species that were everywhere. Our favourites were the tiny yellow-Bellied Sunbirds that were so prolific that we came to refer to them as Cooktown Sparrows.

On departing from Cooktown, we drove up the Battle Camp Road, to Lakefield National Park. We were totally unprepared for Lakefield. It is vast, and has treeless plains, billabongs, rain forest, and the list just goes on and on. It's a place I could have spent weeks exploring. However, we had another agenda, so we proceeded on via Weipa and Moreton Telegraph Station until we finally reached Punsand Bay, only a hop, a step and a jump from Cape York. Actually, it was a 45 minute slog along a seriously washed out 4WD track.

When our turning for home day finally arrived, we reprovisioned at Bamaga for several days on the road and finally turned South. At this point, the blues set in. And Cape York blues can be pretty serious when the realisation dawns on you that the three and a half million corrugations that you encountered on the way up were waiting for you again.

So the first leg to the Jardine River was not undertaken in the best of spirits. These worsened when we arrived at the Jardine Punt and discovered that the ferryman had knocked off for lunch. Determined not to let this setback lower my spirits further, I lit up the bush kettle in the middle of the road, and we had lunch. When the punt finally commenced the afternoon shift, we crossed the Jardine and drove in to the roadhouse for a relief stop.

While my wife and elder daughter responded to nature's call, the other two children sat in the car with their noses buried in books. At this point, I should describe the seating arrangements in the car, because it becomes very relevant shortly. My children could not travel to the local supermarket without having a brawl if they were sitting three abreast across a car seat. So in the interests of family peace, we have a 4WD with three rows of seats. Mum and I sit in the front, the girls sit in the middle, and our son sits down the back on his own.

So while waiting for the return of my wife and daughter, I took a stroll down to the bowsers to check out the price of petrol. Having satisfied my curiosity, I strolled back to the car, just in time to see wife and daughter re-emerge. We climbed aboard, and set off for our overnight destination of Twin Falls. Having had our first meal on the road again, my spirits were starting to improve. But only starting, mind you.

This stretch of the Northern Bypass can lull you into a false sense of security. You can find a relatively smooth driving line, and be running along at a quite reasonable speed when all of a sudden, you'll hit a patch of violent corrugations, or worse still, a huge pothole full of bulldust that is effectively invisible. It was the latter that I completely failed to observe about a half hour after leaving the roadhouse, and the resulting violent change of direction of the car threw us all over the place. When I finally recovered, I called back to make sure that everyone was alright. I got the usual couple of grunts in response and kept going.

Around ten minutes later, elder daughter said in a conversational tone, "Where's Tim?" I looked in my mirrors and saw she had a funny sort of half smiling sort of look on her face. Although I could not see him, I thought he must have been hiding below the seat, so played along with the gag. But it wasn't a practical joke. I stopped the car and got out to check for myself that he hadn't hidden in the car fridge or his backpack or the ashtray. But I finally had to accept the fact that he was really not there.

Instant return of the "turning for home blues", a fast U-turn, and a race back towards the Jardine, checking every vehicle coming the other way to see if Tim had hitched a ride. The bulldust filled pothole was in exactly the same place it had been on the way south and just as invisible. This time I hit it travelling even faster. Finally, almost back at the Jardine, a Valiant ute coming the other way flashed its lights and an arm started waving out the window.

It was Tim and a good Samaritan from the Roadhouse who had gone out of his way to come after us. He had waited a while to see if we had realised our stupidity and returned, but after the best part of an hour, thought he should follow. Road people are like that. They are absolutely fabulous, and the more remote the area, the more generous they are. So we loaded up properly this time, turned around again, and headed South. And, you guessed it - the pothole was in exactly the same place and still just as invisible. I am a very slow learner.

As they say in one of the classics - it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. However, the relief after the events of the previous few hours had finally broken my mood and I was now ready to make the most of the trip home. That wasn't all that was broken, however. I rather suspect that three violent encounters with a pothole had caused some serious damage to one of the springs on the camper. But that is another story....

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