Fantastic family trip to the tip – Part 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Craig Tomkinson

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AMPING AMPING& outdoors

A lookout on the road between Mossman and Port Douglas. At the mouth of the Bloomfield River at Ayton in far north Queensland.

Fantastic family trip to the tip – Part 3

AFTER a break at Hann Crossing, we headed towards Cooktown.

We crossed the Normanby River – a lovely looking area – then continued up the road for a few kilometres to some big ranges covered in a northern species of small messmate trees – which is very similar to Gympie messmate but nowhere as tall, mature Gympie messmate trees are huge.

If you’re ever around the Como forestry area, check out the doggerel trees – they are massive, some of the biggest trees I have seen.

I grew up with Gympie messmate on our family farm – a fantastic timber for building houses, farm sheds and stockyards.

From there into Cooktown we spent an hour or so checking the place out.

It featured a fantastic foreshore precinct with green-grassed areas, barbecue plates and play gym gear for kids and adults, and with what appeared to be free power because I saw four or five caravans and motorhomes with their 240V cords plugged into the council power outlets – how good was that?

After exploring the Cooktown area and visiting the various statues, monuments and displays, we did a quick grocery shop, fuelled up and headed south past the Black Mountain – famous in the area for the black granite rocks.

We then drove past the Lions Den Hotel and on to Ayton, which is a small town on the northern side of the Bloomfield River (Banner Yearie).

We found a tight windy track that popped out at the Bloomfield River mouth.

As we pulled up, we saw a big 4.5m crocodile on the other side of the river… just sunbaking.

There were a few people about, so I had a chat to a local who said they were catching good-sized javelin fish and bream on prawns.

From there we drove through the steep hills of the Bloomfield – a dirt road with steep pulls of 20-degree angles up hill and about 30 degrees down.

We were lucky because while it had been raining, the road was wet but dry enough to tow our wind-up van – there are big signs saying no trailers or vans past a certain point.

It was a fantastic drive along that road to the ferry and over the

Heading North by CRAIG TOMKINSON

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AMPING AMPING& outdoors Fantastic family trip to the tip – Part 3

* from P88 Daintree River on to Mossman.

Every caravan park was full as it was school holidays at the time, so the place was very busy.

We had to drive back up the range towards Mount Carbine to find a free camp.

The next day we drove down the range and along the coast to Port Douglas – this road is so scenic and rivals the Great Ocean Rd, as it winds along beside the ocean – I loved it.

We drove up the Kuranda Range to Kuranda.

We had already done the train and gondola on previous trips, so this time we spent a couple of hours at the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary and the shops, then had lunch and checked out Barron Falls.

From there, we moved on to Atherton and visited the Crystal Caves – a lovely spot full of rocks from all over the world.

Then along the tablelands and down the Palmerston Range to Ingham to see Wallaman Falls, Australia’s highest single drop waterfall at 279m.

This was an unreal place and because the Ingham area had received heavy rainfall over the few days before we arrived, there was plenty of water coming over the falls.

As we pulled up and got out of the fourwheel-drive, we could hear the roar of the falls – it was deafening after a while.

Wallaman Falls are a must on a far north Queensland visit – they are the best falls I have seen.

From here we poked on down the coast past Ayr and about halfway to Bowen we found a great little beach with no camping fees and no vehicle permit was needed to drive on the beach.

I won’t mention its name because it’s too nice a place to have too many people visit it.

If in the area, you’ll just have to find it yourself… though if you do find it, keep it quiet.

We aired down and drove along the beach – it was so nice, and we had a couple hours there before moving on to the Stanage Bay turn-off.

We camped the night there, had a great fire and headed home the next day.

In all, we did 7721km in 17 days, burnt around 1250L of diesel at a cost of about $2000 and had a ball.

Stay safe in your travels.

A curtain fig tree on the Atherton Tablelands.