Day 15 –  Wonga Beach to Musgrave Telegraph Station (Cape York) (Tue May 8^th)

We left Wonga Beach and headed up the Rex range from Mossman to Mt Molloy. This is a nice drive through the rainforest, its quite steep and windy, with awesome views back towards Mossman and the Daintree. 

Then we followed the Mulligan Highway to Lakeland Roadhouse where we had lunch and checked the Main Roads website as they were updating the road closure info.

And low and behold – the roads were opened at 8am this morning!!

The road to Laura is all bitumen, and follows the Great dividing Range. Its rugged, beautiful country. We stopped to look at the Aboriginal Rock Art at Spilt Rock,  13km south of Laura. The kids did well walking up the hill to Spilt Rock, it was pretty hot and steep in places. Some of the Rock Art is 13,000 years old.

 

After Laura the roads are dirt (red dirt) that gets into everything, its caked all over the camper and car. The camper and the main cabin of the car stay dust free, but the dust does get into the back canopy. This isn’t a major problem, it’s only a light film over everything which we can wipe over and vaccum out once we’re back in Cairns.

We camped at the Musgrave Telegraph Station, which was built in 1887. Camping is $10 per adult/night, with kids under school age free.  We were camped in a paddock next to horses, chooks and pumpkins.  With only 3 other groups of campers, it was nice and quiet.

We did 387kms today, which has been our longest so far.