2 May 2013 – Bound for Cape York (Cooktown to Coen)

We woke up this morning to news that we now have an ex-tropical cyclone Zane – it has subsided and is no longer classed as a cyclone – yippee!!  We packed our stuff this morning and moved on out of Cooktown.  We passed a few big banana farms that are local to Lakeland which is about 80kms west of Cooktown.  After bypassing Lakeland we headed north towards Laura which is about a further 60kms, driving alongside the gorgeous Great Dividing Range – stunning views!  Before reaching Laura, we made a stop into an Aboriginal art site, Split Rock.  The Laura area actually contains Queensland’s most extensive Aboriginal rock art and ranks alongside the Kimberley and Arnhemland as Australia’s most important rock art regions.  Some of the images are of people, spirits and animals such as dingoes and echidnas and they tell a story about their life which could date back nearly 37,000 years ago.  The rocks are magnificent in both size and colour and were worth our quick visit.  Not far along the road, we stopped at Laura Roadhouse to fill up fuel and head to the toilets – who knows how long til the next one.  The roadhouse is just like a small fibro home with a couple of fuel bowsers out front and a couple of toilets out the back.  It was still early in the day so on we drove along the Peninsula Development Road, affectionately known as the “PDR”.  The road now changed from sealed to dirt but we were surprised to find that there was no corrugation and it was extremely straight for most part.  The dust followed us but there was no-one in front so the road ahead was clear.  For as far as you could see, the view ahead was a long red road with trees lining the roads, further into the distance you would see the top of a hill with a very small gap in the trees and that was the road going over the crest of the mountain.  Josh carefully manoeuvred through quite a few creeks with either sand or rock bottom with no trouble and the kids were having a great time as we splashed through them.  However, there were also many dips in the road and dry creek beds due to the limited rain they’d had through the wet season.  We passed Hann River Roadhouse without stopping and continued on to Musgrave Telegraph Roadhouse which was only another 140kms past Laura.  Along the way we saw a station mustering cattle as well as a lazy goanna crossing the road, I’m sure there is a joke in that somewhere.  It was after lunch time by now so we stopped for a drink and a serve of their scrummy hot chips.  This original roadhouse has been maintained over the many years it’s been there and is a gorgeous two storey place with windows surrounding the whole top level of the building, with outdoor living underneath.  The old tin roof on top has the name Musgrave embedded into it and again there are a couple of fuel bowsers out front.  As we were about to pull out of here we were surprised to see a Toyota Camry station wagon driving past.  We caught up and passed him down the road, it was just a lone guy travelling in the same direction as us, so we took up the lead and kept him close behind for the next 100kms until we pulled into the town of Coen.  We both pulled up stumps here for the night, he in a small cabin and us in our tents down the back.  We met up in the pub for a good ol’ chin wag with Ian who had driven from Townsville that day and enjoyed a few quiet drinks – well that was to start the night anyway.  The owner of the Exchange Hotel, Barry, came out with a cap each for the girls advertising the hotel as the “Sexchange Hotel” and then ordered the kids a massive plate of nuggets and chips for them to share… such lovely owners.  We decided to order some dinner too (and paid for ours) to get us through the night to go with the cold wine and beers.  The kids played darts next to the bar (good way to improve their maths?) while we hung around chatting with Barry’s wife, Louise, and the other workers there until they kicked us out - even though it was pretty early Scheffer time.  We had great company for the night learning about places to head to once we got to the top before heading home (to our tents) for a restless night’s sleep – did I mention that it was drizzling by this time?