Day 14 – Thu, 15 Jul to Endeavour Falls

Overnight the wind would come in gusts – we were camped in a very treed campground and you could here it approach through the trees before hitting us and then it was gone just as quick – peace again.

We had wallabies grazing around us for breakfast, I put an apple down on the ground whilst I went to get something and a wild turkey came in and helped itself to my apple.

We got caught in rain whilst packing up the tents – well I did – and everything was wet. By the time I had everything roughly stowed the clouds had gone and we haven’t seen rain again all day. It has been 28+C today so good riding weather.

We took in a few of the local sights of Cooktown, especially the statue of Capt Cook in the park on the foreshore. We then headed out of town in a NW direction.

The riding quickly turned to gravel roads so we adjusted our tyre pressures and headed on. We arrived at Endeavour Falls for morning tea and walked through the campground to check out the falls. We hadn’t intended coming back here but this is where we finished up for the night.

We then headed further N to the aboriginal settlement of Hopevale. The servo for obtaining permits was closed (for lunch) so we sorted out a permit from the local foodstore and headed towards Cape Bedford and Elim where the coloured sands are located.

Well this turned out to be some very, very challenging riding. The 23km outbound trip took us over two hours. We rode through gravel roads, wet bright red loam, loamy holes filled with water and sand drifts – I now know why I don’t like sand. The return trip was a little quicker because we knew the water spots and how to negotiate them.

We didn’t quite make it all the way to the beach but to within 4km. The road went steeply down hill with lots of gullies and bad riding lines, not to mention slippery red loam and sections of sand.

So we were happy to have achieved what we had and headed back to Endeavour Falls for a great home cooked meal and now for a sleep. The falls are immediately behind our tents so we can hear the cascading water – great soothing sounds to rest the weary bones.