Day 86 – 9/8/2019 on a Midlife Adventure.
The visit to Grassy Hill Lookout continued to get me thinking as I headed to bed and the possibility of waking up early enough to see the Sunrise. It was probably my last East Coast sunrise for a while so I thought that I might as well.
This meant the awning tent setup the night before had to be packed away, and the swag setup alongside the car so I could make a quick getaway in the darkness.
Right on Time at 6.43 the sun peaked out over the horizon.
The it was back to the caravan park to get some breakfast and pack up the swag before heading off.
The journey today is planned to go through the Lakefield National Park and end at Musgrave Roadhouse.
It was around 9am that I headed out of Cooktown and found my way to the national park.
This provided me my first river crossing pretty early today. Not much further in and I hit the end of the hard stuff and the start of the real journey.
In case it wasn’t obvious as I started bouncing around the car the road’s department decided to let me know the obvious.
This got me to pull off the road and lower the pressure on the tyres to around 30psi. I had heard of going lower but I wanted to start there and see how it went. Overall it helped take some of the edge off of the corrugations.
The Lakefield National Park is actually a really interesting drive with a number of small river crossings (at this time of the year) and ever changing scenery as you go up and over the hills and through the flatlands.
Then you find yourself driving past large billabongs with flowers.
Again changing scenery you are surrounded by flatland with termite mounds.
The overall condition of the Lakefield National Park road is very good with two crews working on it the day I went through.
Along the road you may see stray cattle, plenty of birds and the occasional goanna.
Arriving at Old Laura Station I had a look around at the buildings and you get a sense of the difficulty of living in such a remote area. The area being national park has many campsites, however these must be booked either online or at the rangers station in the park.
At 11:30 I arrived in at Musgrave Station due to be my finishing stop for the day.
This was a good time for a bite to eat where I enjoyed a Steak Sandwich then in walking around the grounds and looking at the distances on the tank made a decision to keep going with the concept starting to be considered that it would be great to see the Sunrise over water to the East and Sunset over water to the West.
My consideration at this point is that I’ve already completed 300km and that Weipa, Qld is only 376 and its midday.
So I hit the road and start putting a lot of km behind me.
What I faced then was what I think was some of the worst roads in the entire journey from Musgrave Station to Coen, Qld.
The corrugations had me slowing down to around 30km/h at points but able to do 100km/h in other sections. Around 300km of the Peninsula Development Road (the road from Lakeland to Weipa) is currently unsealed with work each year to have that sealed within the next 5 or so years.
At around 4:30 I arrived in Weipa and headed for the Albatross Bay Resort. On arrival I noticed that my spotlights had fallen down with the bolts coming undone but yet managing to stay connected with just the wiring harness.
This was a chance to spoil myself with a hotel room after a long day and 86 days living in the caravan. There are some things like a large mirror and space enough to not only swing a cat but three or for of them if you wanted. Most importantly Beer!.
So I have come this far after a shower and a chance to feel human I head down to the beach to watch the sunset.
Ok it takes a while for the sun to set so I kept myself busy.
So after a bite to eat I was off to relax after what was a big day and around 676km.
Well it was a long and bumpy day but I’ve completed a lot of km and now its off to bed to get ready for the fun part of the trip to the tip of Cape York on this Midlife Adventure.
No Comments