The next day it was sunshine and clear skies so we raced up the beach to go and get our photos with the sign! We camped on the beach for another night before moving over to Loyalty beach campground. The staff were all very friendly at Loyalty beach, we found a nice good flat spot for our caravan and set up. Dan and Em also stayed in the campground and got themselves a nice spot overlooking the water. That night we decided to go check out the onsite bar and have some sunset drinks! The sunset was amazing – western sunset. After a few sundowners we treated ourselves to the roast buffet the restaurant had. The next day we had decided to go explore the ‘five beach drive’ on the eastern side of the tip. It was a nice drive (4WD definitely needed), but like Chili Beach, there was lots of rubbish washed up, which tainted the beauty of the beaches. The drive itself only took an hour, so we were done by lunch - perfect timing to head to Punsand bay for a lunch and to try there famous wood fired pizzas! The pizzas did not disappoint, there were delicious!
We had a little stroll through the campground before returning to our camp at Loyalty. We again treated ourselves to fish&chips that night, as Loyalty Beach are famous for them on Sundays.
After our fish and chips we headed back to Dan and Ems campsite for some final drinks as they were starting their journey back the following day. We reminisced on our memories made – the good and the bad haha. We decided to stay a few more nights before starting our journey back. We left loyalty on Wednesday and headed to the Jardine Ferry, our first night camp spot was ‘Old Kennedys camp’ approx. 20km north of Bramwell. We ducked into Captain Billy’s Landing for a look, again with our luck – the weather was the greatest. It looked like a nice beach and a nice flat campground, but it was very exposed /unprotected from the winds and at the time of visiting very windy. We headed back out and made tracks for Moreton Telegraph station for the night.
The next day we made tracks to Weipa. I had made the decision we would stay 2 nights in the van park to have a look and restock our fridges – as they have a Woolworths in town. Weipa is predominantly a mining town and this is very much clear as you drive into it. It was a nice little break, with Rusty making friends with the neighbour’s dog – ‘Bark’. Bark was a kelpie crossed with a dashound. They would go for walks along the beach together in the mornings and afternoon – running around like crazy kids. After our 2 night stay, Rusty & Bark said their goodbyes and we continued our journey back down – setting up camp at Coen again.
We stayed another 2 nights by the river as we quite liked the camp spot. The river there has crystal clear water and is great for a dip plus you have decent phone signal (with Telstra) so can catch up with the world. Musgrave Roadhouse was our next stop in our sights, cruising straight down the PDR. We arrived just at 2pm and were the only ones there. By 6pm the whole campsite for full to the bream! We stayed in our corner spot again as it was right near the horses and we had some spare veges we fed to them. Rusty wasn’t too sure of them, giving them a fair few barks. From there we tracked through Lakefield National Park as we heard the PDR from Musgrave to Laura was horrendous. We eventually popped out at Laura and tracked down to Lakefield (the town) to fill up for our final stretch back to Cairns. We stopped in at Palmer Roadhouse and treated ourselves to a beer, burger and chips. Now this is what a typical roadhouse should be! It had great food, a small bar, pool table, small souvenirs, basic supplies, a mini museum and lots of quirky things around the place. Myself and Kurt were very impressed!
The next day we tracked down to a free camp at Mt Molloy which was really good. We stayed here for 2 nights while we planned our return into Cairns. We’ve booked ourselves into a caravan park for a week so we can clean, rest and explore the city. Looking back I can’t believe our cape adventure stretched over 35 days in total! We both agreed we loved every minute! A big shout out to Dan & Em for making our trip up memorable and we can’t wait to cross paths again with you guys in the future. For now we are looking forward to not seeing red dust for a while…
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