Cape York (an adventure in Blokesworld)

One of the goals we set ourselves for our time away was to get to the northernmost tip of Australia at Cape York. We did a lot of research and took a lot of advice on whether two townies in a pretend 4WD (an all wheel drive rather than a 4WD) towing a big trailer could get there on the 700 k of dirt roads on the cape.

In summary the advice we got was:

• Go there early in the dry season after the roads have been graded and the damage from the wet season has been repaired

• Go on the Peninsular Development Road (PDR) and take the by-pass roads and avoid the old telegraph track as the OTT is real hairy chested 4WDing

•     Talk to the locals including the police and fellow travellers for up-to-date advice.

Well we got to the tip in no small part because we followed this advice which was pretty right. Marty did the talking bits I did the rest. So what was it like? The PDR is a wide road generally in good order.

It changed surface often with many water crossings and dips. We think the dips were so named because they are lucky dips for drivers: some were holes in the ground while others were barely noticeable. We got good advice from Scott, a son of family friends who lives in Weipa and assured us the PDR was a unsealed freeway at this time of the year and from various station owners/managers who confirmed that the dry season manning of the stations went from 25 April until 25 October and we were there at about the best time as the graders were at work. Many parts of the road were very different on the way back even though only a week or so had elapsed. This was because of the grader work and traffic use. By talking to the locals we were warned in advance of the biggest potholes so we knew when to expect them. This meant that we only engaged 4WD drive on three occasions, driving in 2WD the rest of the time.

Highlights of the trip were

• The 34k trip to the tip itself from the camping ground and the iconic photo next to the sign "You are at the northernmost point of the Australian continent",

• The trip to Thursday and Horn Islands, where Alison Hall, a daughter of some friends in Canberra, made an excellent guide,

• The visit to Weipa and especially the mine tour

• Going bush to Stone's Crossing and Sandy Beach on the banks of the Wenlock River with Tony and Lorne, friends of Scott, who kindly took the time to show us one of the many special places around Weipa
• The camp ground at Loyalty Beach and the fantastic sunsets.

• The aboriginal drawings at Split Rock near Laura which had great explanations provided.

• And the best day of the whole trip so far, a day under the mango trees at Moreton Telegraph Station spent reading books, drinking wine and generally navel gazing.

We also gained a good knowledge of back packer employment schemes as every station/pub/camp ground had backpackers working as dog's bodies. We saw Swiss, Germans, Fins, Scots and Poms in very unlikely places earning a quid. We also saw some great sunsets, had food eaten by rodents in the middle of the night (Marty is a real hero with a broom handle against a ferocious mouse) and paid up to $2.36 a litre for unleaded fuel.

All in all it really is blokesworld as activities revolve around traditional male pastimes such as fishing boating and four wheel driving. I am happy to partake in this once in a while but I am too much of a princess to do it all the time and am looking forward to returning to civilisation for a while.

We made a lot of new friends along the way. Each night after we set up camp at the Road houses we took the opportunity to meet others that were doing the same thing as us and the general conversation each night would be: where have you come from today, where are you heading to tomorrow and which way are you going to go? Some days we would meet up with others that we had meet before and while we would take a different road and do something a bit different on some days we would end up meeting them again. And we hope that our paths may meet again as we continue our journey.

In all we probably spent longer than most on the cape as we had the time to do so and really wanted to get into it and get a feel for it.

We must give special thanks to:

Scott Byrne who event though he wasn't in Weipa allowed us to camp in his house in the town,

Scott's housemate Wayne who showed us round (we hope the edits to his resume were a reasonable repayment)

Alison Hall who took us around Horn and Thursday Islands and sent back our camera on the ferry when we accidently left it on Horn

Tony Wittkopp, who despite never met us before took us to a special place in the bush and arranged for us to get a new car battery when we needed it (sorry about the State of Origin result, Tony)

Big John and Di and Little John and Tresna the managers of Morton who allow us to have a special meal with their staff (the station doesn't provide meals normally but a butcher's daughter cannot resist lamb shanks).

The only bad part of the trip is Marty. Every time we say farewell to the lovely people we meet on our travels and they say "its been great to meet you" he says "I know" meaning they are the lucky ones and not us!!. We have also been playing spotto on the whole trip. This means that the first person to yell "spotto" when they see a yellow car scores a point. The current score 632 to me and 618 to Marty but that includes about 100 cars that only Marty could possibly think are yellow (Mustard, orange, gold and even light green).