Day 37 - Cooktown - Bramwell Junction

Today was huge!! we set off from Cooktown, not knowing what to expect. We planned to take 5 days from Cooktown to Seisa (closest town to tip of Cape York), due to the fact the road condition was an unknown. All that we knew was that it as gravel and freshly graded ready for the dry season (the tourist season!).

 For a gravel road that goes to hell and back every wet season, it was great! We drove the sealed highway (140kms) from Cooktown to Laura which introduces us to the beginning of the Peninsula Development Road. From here on, it was unsealed. There is still a lot of road works continuing along the development track. We had planned to stop at the Musgrave Roadhouse for the night; but it was only 11am and so we continued on down the road. Due to the fact that the road conditions were so great we decided to push on as far as we could before dark. 

The kids were AMAZING!! Archers River Roadhouse was our next stop, for lunch. Food was great! There is so many foreign tourists working at these roadhouses (according to them making lots of money). we don't understand it ourselves. Who goes on a holiday to work, literally, in the middle of nowhere??... Petrol along the Development track is expensive (compared with majority of Aus). $1.84/litre for Unleaded!! WOW! crazy, but to be expected i suppose so far from civilisation. 

We drove (well Maciek drove and we sat) an epic 650kms today! The track was great but Maciek found it very tiring and stressful due to ever changing road conditions (bull dust, wet gravel and creek crossings). The car and trailer is a disgrace! They have both changed colour to RED from all of the dust and water. My job for the journey was to be "cow observer"! There are no fences between road and farm land and so the cows wander free along the road.

We pulled into Bramwell Junction Roadhouse at 5pm, just before dark. For those who have never traveled into the tropics before, dusk doesn't exist. Sun goes down and then its dark. We set up the tent and cooked some dinner. Maceik chatted with the owners for a while and with some of the tourist travellers heading up and back from the tip. 

Turmite mound at Bramwell

Sleeping well, we awoke in the morning bright eyed and bushy tailed. We knew we only had a "short" drive today and so we were very relieved by this. 2.5 hours was our time before finally reaching our destination.