On Road Caravan to Cape York

[Music] we set off from lakeland and hit our first corrugations just north of laura we started to second guess ourselves and thought have we made the right decision bringing our van up here but we let our tyres down and stopped every 20 minutes or so to check the van inside and out everything was looking good so we pushed on we took it easy and made it to bramwell station at the start of the old telegraph track in one piece stopping for two nights along the way [Music] [Music] [Music] the landscape up here is littered with massive termite mounds and they got bigger the further north we were we came across this one and just had to stop to check it out [Music] well here we are at the start of the telegraph trap we don't know how far we're going to go we'll just wait and see how it goes we're not into wrecking the gears so we'll turn around if we need to but uh wish us luck you excited to go guys let's go the first obstacle on the track is just a few hundred meters in at palm creek there are various entries into the creek the main entry is very steep and narrow similar to gumshot we found an easier option up the creek a bit apologies for the squeaky brakes by this stage we've clocked up over 500 kilometers on dirt roads and that dust just gets into everything including the brakes come on [Applause] the exit was steep with some deep holes the ranger doesn't have diff locks so i had to give it a little more right foot to make it up hold it rub it on [Music] [Applause] so we're about a third of the way through the southern section uh it's all been pretty easy except for palm creek which got a little bit hairy but uh all doable uh and but really the rest of it except for a couple of little dips and ruts here and there it's just been this sort of straight trap with the odd bypass around a fallen tree so we'll see how we keep going gunshots up a little bit further so we'll film that one there's many dry creek crossings along the way those are pretty simple just like this one [Music] [Applause] oh finally some water in the crossings this one is the dull hunty river gunshots four you could go down this one about three hours into the track is the next real obstacle gunshot creek there are many different entries and exits which change season to season the main entry at gunshot is just wild and only suited to those people who don't mind a little penal damage we didn't see anyone attempt it when we were there but many do every season we found another way down around the corner that looked a lot more achievable we met a few people along the track and stayed together for the day this twinlock 79 series made the exit look easy uh puppy's still in the car [Applause] [Music] um as you can see here without diff locks as soon as my tire falls in a hole it spins and we lose all traction now i probably could have made it up using some max tracks and a bit more momentum but for the last few hours we were hearing a clunking in the front end that i thought might be a cv on the way out so i didn't want to push it but more on that later one of the lads was ready with the winch so we hooked it up and made it out with ease [Music] back on the road and into more tight winding tracks with the odd rut or washout by this stage we're about five hours in and getting a little weary time to look for camp for the night the next crossing was cockatoo creek there were some deep holes to avoid so a bit of weaving and winding was required keep going [Applause] let me get my bun yeah now hook it back this way yep what are we doing guys camping it rough tonight aren't we okay and each one glad besides me from maltese good teamwork yes okay though you're gone [Music] okay just washing off the day's dirt in this little creek here hoping no little crocodilians come get their tootsies good morning just thought i'd show you our camp for last night it's at cockatoo creek and we're a little bit cheeky and decided to camp under the picnic area but it worked great for us and plenty of other people have done the same so there's uh some really interesting little uh inscriptions and and writings on the wall everyone seems to write their own um you know tags of when they were here and what they've done and uh they've even used this wall as a bit of a the memorabilia of their trip broken car parts bits and pieces i don't know how much you can see in this light but uh yeah cockatoo creek not a bad place to stay we set off the next morning for the last leg of the southern section of the telly track no big obstacles today but the track did get more hilly and rutted uh don't mind that noise it's just our camp oven on the roof rack thinking about noises the rattle in the front end was getting worse we had tried to find it a few times but just couldn't pinpoint it but we stopped again and finally found the cause what's happened uh the upper control arm bolt came loose uh that's what i don't know how many hundred kilometers of corrugations and then the southern section of the uh teletrack can do and it might have something to do with i fit this suspension myself but but that was 20 000 kilometers ago so we'll blame it on the corrugations thank you yeah okay but all good now hopefully let's see if that stopped that rattle well we found the problem early hopefully so but that uh that nut on the upper control arm was nearly took itself all the way off the bolt so if that had come out it'd be a different different story we'd have no front suspension at all yeah we wouldn't want that to happen on the telly track that's for sure no but hopefully problem solved hey keep checking that stuff eh yep it's a good lesson next stop is fruitpat falls what an awesome place to wash off that red dust oh first down the road was elliott falls this section known as twin falls was a bit full on for the kids so we had a dip at the swimming hole just a short walk downstream at this point we decided that we were happy with what we had achieved and would head back to brenwall station via the bypass to pick up the van this cuts out the last one third of the track we stayed the night at bramwell and hit the road the next morning let's see how we go loading the van onto the jardin river ferry [Music] is the entry and exit to the ferry are very steep we scraped hard front and back but made it on in one piece what i'm worried about now is making it off hey guys we made it to the jardin river thank you very much [Applause] uh-huh [Applause] [Music] that wasn't good we made it all the way up to the jardine river with no damage and then just went on to the barge and unfortunately our van being quite low it broke our stabilizer legs off but hopefully it's an easy fix or we can replace them quite easily and all other damage was done let's see tie them up for their broken oh well i wanted to get rid of those anyways this means we might be a bit confident that we can get some replacements yep snapped clean off on the back end of the front end on the back end of it you can see here where it snapped right off the back here but if that's the only damage we've got coming all this way i think we're pretty lucky the van has done us well i think on road van made it all the way to the jardine river hopefully to get us to the tip we made it into our camp at a loud beach just out of bemidja we were just in time to catch this performance being filmed by sbs for a national dance competition [Music] all right guys are you ready yeah we're going to the tip today [Music] let's do it can't wait we make the final 50 minute drive from our campsite to the top of australia much of the drive is through dense rainforest a pleasant change from the dry scrub we have been into the last week from the car park there is a 10 minute walk over the headland to get to the site we all had a turn of placing our rocks on the pile to mark our visit we made it the northernmost point of this the beautiful allow beach campsites are right on the beach with power water and even the kitchen sink so after the incident coming off the jardin ferry where we ripped off our rear stabilizer legs i'm just trying to work out a way to the van will scrape either way there's no doubt about it it's just so long so low but uh when we drag it off the ferry i just don't want it to catch up on anything so this is what i've come up with for now and we'll see how it goes it's got some uh logs or small logs cable tied in there and hopefully this will just provide a bit of a surface for it to skid across rather than grabbing on the the rear end of the what's left of the stabilizer leg mount just need to do it to the other side and we'll be all good we often saw mobs of horses wandering around bamaga in the surrounding bushland we originally thought these were wild horses but then we noticed some had brandings the locals explained that most have owners but they are just allowed to roam free some owner owners ride them regularly but most have to be re-broken each year ready for the big horse race at the bemega show [Music] okay [Music] these three plane crash sites are all surrounding the northern peninsula airport which during world war ii was known as higgins field the first and most easily accessible right next to the road is a dc-3 bomber that crashed in 1945 all six people on board died in the crash the wreckage is the most complete of the three sides if you walk back along its final path you will find other sections still laying where they were ripped from the bomber as it flew through the trees the second crash site is a bristol beaufort bomber an australian-built torpedo bomber that overshot the runway and crashed in 1945. all crew and passengers survived this one a very unique looking plane the last side is a little further down the road and a bit harder to find this is a curtis p40e warhawk single seat fighter plane not much info on this one but it looks like it came down pretty hard so here we are heading south we've come back across the jardine we screamed hard again but no big damage and we're at bremwell roadhouse at the moment the roads have been pretty good coming back down except for one large section uh in between cramwell and jardine all right let's go so last night we stayed at the morton telegraph station and i tell you what it was a luxury to have green grass underfoot it's uh they're right on the wentlock river here and they water this is morton telegraph station is one of the original telegraph stations on the overland telegraph line and they have a little bit of history here and a little bit of a museum there you can walk down to the wetland river it's beautiful down there people even catch fish down there so that's really nice and uh it was 35 a night which is a bit more than we normally pay just because they charged five dollars per night per child but they do have all the amenities and you can fill up your tents with fresh filtered creek water uh the van made it to here all right it was getting a little bit more dust inside on the way back down just because it's a bit dryer on the way up we had a little bit of rain on the way south it's been dry so just get a little bit of dust inside but what can you do all right we're going to try and push through to cohen today there's a nice uh quick sight camp there and hopefully all goes well so we made a little bit further than cohen last night the place we uh the free camp we wanted to stay in income we just couldn't get in there with the van on so we pushed on and we're actually going a different way home as well we're not going along the pdr just because it was the corrugations were just shocking and the road works so with a bit of a local tip we've we've come a different way the the coastal road and this will link us up with lakefield national park and that'll then bring us back through to laura so we're gonna try it so far so good the the roads uh are great so far and uh we've just pulled in just off the off the road no one's gone past really since we've been here so it's a pretty quiet road we're right next to the stuart river and uh we're going to try and push all the way through to lakeland today but we will just have to see how many times we stop because lakefield national park is is a pretty nice place so we we might be stopping crocodiles spotting looking at lakes and so on so we'll uh we might have to stay there tonight or we might make it through let's see the back road between port stewart and lakefield national park was in much better condition than the pdr at this point we had been on the road for one and a half hours and it only passed one other car as you pass through lilly val station there are about five gates to get through good chance for tara to stretch her legs i reckon you'll know when you're in lakefield national park when you enter knife old plane only grass and termite mounds for as far as you can see a must-see in lakeville national park is the old laura homestead first leased in 1879 it was a successful cattle station and meat works servicing cooktown and the palmer gold fields abandoned in 1966 old laura fell into disrepair but in 1978 the queensland government purchased the property and volunteers restored the homestead and its outbuildings check out this old ford blitz truck still here after all these years we could have easily spent a few days exploring lakefield but most of the campsites are better suited to tents or camper trailers so we'll definitely be back next time without the van and stay a bit longer by the end of the day we were back with our mates on a station in lakeland we'd all missed our girl very much and i think it's safe to say she missed us too hello now you know who we are hello what are you doing here all up we did about 1500 kilometers of dirt roads and corrugations so we think our gear fared quite well considering time now to clean all the dust out of the ute and the van and make a few minor repairs and that's it for our cape york adventure thanks for coming along for the ride and stay tuned for more exciting adventures [Music] you

Channel: Jahlico Adventures

Views: 17,577

Rating: 4.768116 out of 5

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Id: 50COyB7fMIQ

Length: 32min 33sec (1953 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 04 2021