Cooktown to Mareeba

Today has one been one of those days that when you get to the end of it you think, shit that was a good day.

It was a day of two distinct parts with a punctuation mark in the middle.

After breakfast we set off in a north westerly direction. This will be as far north as we go on the York Peninsula.

Yesterday at the museum we got talking to one of the custodians and he enquired where we’d come from and where we were headed. He suggested we might like to take an alternative route to the Split Rock Aboriginal drawings.

So we thought we would and off up the highway we went until the signpost we were looking for. Battlecamp Road.

We’ve had a bit if everything on this road. Firstly it was perfect tarmac. We are in the Tablelands and the scenery is fantastic. The road then turned to a normal gravel road for about 5 km and then turned into the red clay surface. It had rained at some point so the dust was minimal but not enough to make it slippery.

We crossed a couple of streams without any trouble and soon after descended very steeply to another river crossing which was a lot bigger than the previous ones.

The base was concrete and Rob V had warned me how slippery these can be. So I thought I would walk it first to test the depth and traction. It didn’t seem too bad although I didn’t walk it all the way.

We jumped on and it went pretty well but it was deeper than I expected with splashes right up to the top of the windscreen.

So on we went and we came across a herd of I assume wild horses or Brumbies. They are honestly as stupid as sheep, panicked when they saw us and ran all over the place including across the road.

Then it was time for corrugations, the road hadn’t been too bad up till now, but we crossed a cattle stop with a sign indicating a station and the road was incredibly corrugated. The loaded BMW was the tool for this job although it was fairly slow going.

Once we cleared the station the road improved and I was happy motoring along at 80-90km/hr. I did get another aussie lesson though, at one point we hit a patch of deep sand, I didn’t recognise it until we were weaving through it and fortunately out the other side before I could say Bulldust.

Lesson learned.

We had one more river crossing and Robyn managed to take a little video.

The rest of the road was just delightful and it got even better after we passed a grader that was smoothing out the road.

So that was the Battlecamp Road and a wee gem it was.

Now for the punctuation.

We emerged at a little town called Laura and stopped for a drink.

Then off to the Split rock Aboriginal art site.

Truly amazing rock art thought to be 13000 years old! I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Then it was a 230km ride down the main highway to our destination Mareeba.

The temp rose to 32 and there was a very stiff breeze blowing which kept me alert.

The scenery was fantastic and the road was almost deserted.

We pulled in for gas and a drink at Lakeland and one the suv drivers asked me how I was coping in the wind. I told him there is so much for me to learn about riding in Australia but riding in wind isn’t one of them.

We pulled into Mareeba which is known for producing 80% of Australia’s coffee and reflected on a most satisfying day.