“Go West” (like the Village People)

After finally leaving Cairns, we headed up the range and into Mareeba.  This is where Australian coffee is grown, and we decided we had to drop back into Coffee Works.  This was to have a quick coffee of course, as well as top up on our ground coffee which we had picked up on our way through last time.  It was too good an opportunity to miss, and the restock of the lovely coffee was important for the next few months.

From there, we drove on to Chilligoe.  This was a significant area in the early 1900’s for mining, and various mines were dotted all throughout the area.  Chilligoe also had an historic, living museum with various old smelters still standing.  They use to process the ore from surrounding mines, and produced gold, copper, etc.  At the time it was quite advanced in its technology.  We did a quick skim of these smelters, then went out to the local rodeo grounds, which doubled as a campground.  It was basically a large open paddock with some basic facilities.  Suited us fine!

Our general path to the west was to be by following the Savannah Way, a road network from Cairns to Broome.  Our Savannah wasn’t particularly named after this route, but was a nice irony to be on it.  From Mareeba, you can follow the bitumen to Normanton, however we picked the slightly more out of the way path, that being via Chilligoe, and the Bourke Development Road.  This is a 540km dirt road which passes through some spectacular country, along the South West part of Cape York.  It crosses quite a number of creeks and rivers, but after multiple checks, we found it to be open and fully passable.

The other thing that Chilligoe is well known for is the impressive limestone caves in the area.  There are various guided tours through the most impressive ones, but with the kids and a timeframe, the next morning we decided to only do one of the self guided walks through one of the caves.  This ended up suiting us perfectly, as the girls had a great time looking through the cave – and it was not too long and drawn out. 

After an early lunch, we started the drive towards Normanton.  The countryside was more of the semi-arid bush we absolutely love, and strangely, a feeling of being more ‘at home’ hit both of us.  We loved the beach type areas, but it’s pretty clear this is where we love.

We made for the Lynd River, and found a spectacular camping spot, 800 metres off the road, perched high on the bank overlooking the river.  Wow, this was perfect for us!!!

We really were in our paradise.  In the bush, camped by ourselves, sensational view, and lovely warm weather.  The girls had a ball running around and riding their bikes, and we kicked back with some cheese, crackers, and a beer / wine or two.  Does it get any better?