2010/10 Australia trip - Laura River |
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Dear All,
At the end of part one of this journal, we had just replenished our supplies at Mareeba, the last town with a comprehensive set of services.
Wednesday October 6th
We headed north from Mareeba through dry savannah country, with lush green mountains off to our east. These are the mountains that tower over Cairns and Mossman and the Barrier Reef. We were now on the Peninsula Developmental Road, the major route into the Cape York Peninsula, but just a narrow ribbon of development surrounded by largely untouched wilderness. From now on we would be dependent on roadhouses and a few tiny towns, not much more than bumps in the road
A hundred years ago this area was home to some thriving mining communities, but now the mines have been exhausted leaving ghost towns and a few isolated pubs. We passed through Mount Molloy and Mount Carbine, former mining towns, only notable now for their classic hotels.
We stopped at the Palmer River Roadhouse to make tea, and met a couple from Colorado who were drooling over our Troopie camper. They take trips to Australia much like we used to, renting a car or a camper, but can’t get into the more remote and interesting areas because they don’t have the right type of vehicle.
The Palmer River area out to the west of the road was once the centre of gold mining activity, but today is a maze of mining tracks and shafts, derelict machinery, and little else, as the towns like Maytown have rotted away.
The road was interesting, climbing steeply into the mountains in places. It was blacktopped until Lakeland, where we went north towards Laura and the Mulligan Highway forked east towards Cooktown on the coast. We wanted to see Cooktown, and were planning to come back that way.
The gravel road to Laura is being upgraded to blacktop, so we had short sections that were blissfully smooth interspersed with others that were corrugated rock. We came to an automatic underbody washing machine. It is intended to wash potential invasive weeds and bugs off the vehicles’ 
chassis before they travel up to the Cape. We weren’t sure 
whether it was intended for us but we took the wash anyway.
We stopped at Split Rock for a hot and breezy climb up to the Quinkan aboriginal art galleries: humans, turtles, flying foxes, and spirits. Photos weren’t allowed so these pictures come from a book. Somehow, it was OK to put pictures into a book but not into my camera. The topmost image is of an imjim, a 
mischievous spirit who played tricks on humans.
My Cape York book told me that there was a nice bush camp just across the road, and sure enough after bouncing over the ruts and craters, we found a track to this perfect spot alongside a permanent waterhole in the Laura River. We’d scared away the legitimate residents, three wallabies, and set up camp in the steamy wilderness. There were very few nasty bugs, but lots of gnats, also a big green praying mantis who came in to help with the washing up and had to be evicted. The 
most common insect seemed to be the green ant, and there were columns of them on every tree and shrub. They were apparently a popular food amongst the aborigines.
Thursday October 7th
This piece of wilderness had no bathrooms, so Sandie got to use her portable toilet seat. I was assigned duties which involved latrine digging, watching out for incoming campers, and repelling crocodiles.
The campsite was a beautiful spot, but we had to be moving along. We found the Quinkan Cultural centre in Laura and we paid our dues for visiting the galleries at Split Rock, only to find that we had to also pay to get in to pay. The centre had lots of good information about the aborigines and their art and the early settlers and gold miners, but why was there a white man in charge of the centre? 
The town of Laura had almost died when the gold petered out but a hundred years later it continues as a tiny bump on side of the road. A railway was built from the coast at Cooktown to Laura, including a bridge over the Laura River, but the gold ran out and the bridge was never used. This traction engine is a relic of those days.