2010/10 Australia trip - Coen River
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We cruised back to the Southern Bypass road, which soon rejoined the Telegraph Road. We passed through this forest of zamia palms and then stopped at the Wenlock River for a massive lunch to eat up all those foods that weren’t going to make it through Quarantine.

After all that, when we got to the quarantine station just north of Coen all the officer was interested in was fruit and veggies; he took a look at our sole surviving onion, decided it was good and declared it a citizen of Australia.

We’d had enough bouncing and rattling for the day so we took the next camping area on the road, “The Bend” on the Coen River, a wide river  bed with only a couple of channels still flowing. 

We dropped into a steep chute on the bank into deepish water, drove across to the other bank, and found a nice spot alongside a small rapid.  In the picture the river is calm but it was rushing downhill behind us.  It’s a popular swimming spot for the locals but they all left at dark and there’s no traffic on the road, so all we could hear was the rushing of the river.

Saturday October 16th
We’d had a comfortable night as the temperature had dropped a little, but it soon warmed up in the morning.  We drove back across the river and our Troopie hauled us back up the chute in the river bank very well. 

After the quarantine exercise, our food supply was low but we’d decided to clean the fridge out in Cooktown, so we didn’t stop to buy anything in Coen, and continued south towards the Musgrave road house. 

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