Cape York adventure starts

After a couple of nights in Cairns we set of on our Cape York adventure about 10.00am.

Cairns beautiful waterfront

After heading north past Port Douglas we tacked the mountain range to Mt Molloy. It was a hard pull on the car and Myrtle but we took our time and did it easy. First stop was at Mt Carbine Pub for what was to be a snack, but ended up being 2 beers for Shane and a lemon squash for me! 

The remote Mt Carbine Pub

Shane enjoys an early morning beer

It was now my turn to drive onto Lakeland. There is not much in Lakeland but I have been here before as my son Shane worked up here for a while. We stopped at the roadhouse for a  bite to eat and then we headed of for Laura. The Quinkan Pub in Laura has camping out back for $24 (powered) and we will also be leaving Myrtle her and tent it the rest of the way up the cape - should be interesting! The setting up of Myrtle in 30c plus was pretty exhausting. Dinner at the pub for me was disappointing, Shane liked his but mine was crap. But we had a good night listening to the Townsville Army Band, who were very very giod and chatting with our neighbours Lorna and Ian from the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. 

Townsville Army Band entertaining us

Early the next morning we went for a drive out to view some Aboriginal rock art. Quinkan rock art refers to a large body of locally, nationally and internationally significant Australian Aboriginal rock art. This particular art is a unique characterization of "Quinkans" an Aboriginal mythical being, found among the sandstone escarpments around Laura. 

It was quite warm and the walk consisted of lots of rough rocky steps. It took us a while but we did it and it was worth the walk. 

The area where we are staying also has a number of interesting castle shaped ant hills. These beauties are around Myrtle. 

Hillston to Cobar

Our drive from Hillston to Cobar was fairly uneventful although I did kill my very first piece of wildlife!!! A silly bird flew into the windscreen very very hard and left some of it's body over the windscreen!! All was OK with the car although I think Shane nearly had a heart attack as he was having a snooze when it happened and woke with a huge fright. But alas the bird was a lot worse off. We did see quite a lot of other wildlife that I didn't kill. There was cattle and sheep. But also lots of Emu's and some with babies and heaps and heaps of goats. Cobar (which means Copper) is an old mining town with the discovery of Copper in 1870.

Over the years there have been many mines here opening, closing and opening again. These days (from what I can gather) there are only two sites remaining. Today we went and had a look at the open cut Peak Gold Mine which is 1400+ metres deep. Looking down into the hole the huge mine truck looked like a Tonka Toy!

We also went for a drive out to the Mt Grenfell Historic Site. The site consists of three main magnificent examples of Aboriginal paintings. Once again the area was full of heaps of goats.