Nearly out of the red dust

So, teeth no longer gritted against corrugations, we are relaxing in Coen, halfway down the Cape from the tip to Cairns.

The vehicles ahead of us boarding the Jardine River Ferry,
just south of Cape York.

Our battery problems meant we had no power in our ‘home’ part of the motorhome while travelling so we simply cleared the crisper sections of the fridge and freezer, bought 2 bags of ice before we left the Bramwell Junction campground where there was no power, but we COULD run our generator, putting the fridge and freezer back in the game.

Today we drove to Coen, where once again we are plugged into power and tomorrow we’ll just add more ice for the fridge (the freezer lot will have re-frozen) before we set off for Cooktown.

We met an interesting bloke at Bramwell Junction. He’s a middle-aged Englishman, born in Cooma (we suspect his Dad was working on the Snowy Mtns scheme) but went back to the UK when little. He’s riding around Oz on his motorbike, which carried a tent, sleeping gear, cooking gear etc and he has another 5 months to go.

There were also 11 very fit cyclists, with some support vehicles, who are riding to the tip of the cape, then taking a boat to PNG, and doing the Kokoda Track.

We keep bumping into participants in a Care For Kids rally (there’s 40 4WDs taking part) and today, while having a drink at the Coen Hotel,  named the Exchange Hotel, but changed by the addition of an ‘S’ to the Sexchange Hotel, a group of trail bikers rode in.

They also had support vehicles and apparently, each paid $5000 for the privilege of eating dust from Cairns to the Cape, then flying back to Cairns.

One of the sentinel anthills in the Bramwell Junction
campground.

As John says, with most places in Australia, you visit, then drive on to somewhere else. With Cape York, you drive north to visit it . . . then you have to come south over the same fairly vile roads. One more day of those dirt roads and we’ll be back on the blacktop, all the way home.

We plan to go south to Cairns on the Bloomfield Track, and have already made arrangement for the Isuzu to be serviced next Monday in Cairns, and before that will source a new gel battery so our solar system feels happy again and stops sending out alarms. . . so that’s why it’s turned off.

Tonight we’re eating some of the barramundi we bought in Karumba. John is slicing it into small sections, coating them in rice flour, then cooking them gently in the sandwich toaster. We’ve certainly learnt to be innovative and compromise. All I have to do is make a salad!