Day 35 to day 38 Adventures

Day 35
Shopping is done and we're at Archer river roadhouse camping tonight. Yea Archer river hamburgers for dinner and real showers and toilets 2 nights in a row! The place is rapidly filling up with trucks and other campers as its the only place for probably 200km with a TV for state of Origin fans. C'mon QLD!
Mat and Lawrie are under the Hihouse muttering, shit rubber, tut, tut, shock absorbers, $@&$@. Now Lawrie is heating a metal rod on the stove...things are a little tense. Technical explanation...chewed out the rear shockie rubbers. They were brand new shock absorbers just before we left...not happy! Mat had some spares but they didn't fit so Lawrie made them fit. He's so clever! Later: yea, we won! Everybody is very happy! There was quite a crowd round one TV and some blues supporters so a great atmosphere. We were camped a ways from the TV so we drove the Hihouse as close as we could get and put Summers mattress on the floor and she slept through the whole game with Nic checking now and again. She woke up at the end. Great timing!
Day 36
Off to Bathurst Head today through lakefield NP. Sighted Brolgas on the way. I probably haven't mentioned all the Termite mounds everywhere. All shapes and sizes, some twice my height. I particularly like the medieval castles with lots of turrets. Some of the landscape today was quite desolate. It's amazing how many types of landscape we see in one day. Later we saw the most beautiful swamp/wetlands. Looks like a tropical paradise in the photo but I reckon the midgies and the Mosquitos feed off the crocodiles and sharks!
Nic and Mat had a flat tyre on the way. Did a really good job on it! Didn't take long to fix. A few vehicles stopped to see if we needed help which was nice. After we took off Lawrie and I were last in the convoy and found Mat's shovel 200 metres down the track. Can't remember if I mentioned I found a shovel on the way up to the Cape......so lots of jokes about our ability to find a Bunnings anywhere!
We seem to have a stone or something in the brakes, lots of awful scraping squealing noises. Lawrie is going to have a look tomorrow. Stunning views.
Coming in to camp we could smell fuel. Turned out lindsays spare 20lpetrol container had worn through on the base. Lucky none of us smoke!
We have found an awesome camp site just next to Bathurst head. Its a small cove and we are the only people here. Somebody comes here regularly cos there is a fire ring/BBQ
bench table and chairs. The beach is lovely and the water so inviting but of course we can't go near it cos of croc danger.
We have been lucky to free camp in so many beautiful places with the sound of a creek, waterfall or waves to lull us to sleep.
Sighted Rock wallaby. We are going to spend 2 nights here it's so lovely.
Day 37
Sighted Large turtle offshore. Lawrie has checked the brakes and can't find the pesky stone....hoping it's fallen out and it isn't something else wrong. Now he's going to fix another ratshit shockie rubber (his words) and go for a short drive to see if we still have a problem. M L D are fishing, birds are circling, I think they are cormorants. I've been for a bit of a scramble over the rocks, I'm assured crocs won't come over rock to get me! This place is stunning, so serene, like something out of a movie and a big plus for me...no midgies. I think there may be oysters at low tide. Went for a drive and the car is okay, collected firewood for tonight. Saw a lot of burnt off areas...some still smoking. We've seen them on and off when on aboriginal land. Saw very large fish jump a few times, could have been dolphin or some sort of game fish. Lawrie and I collected fresh oysters....I ate one straight off the rocks...wow! Mat and Di have finally caught barra big enough to keep and Lindsay has a net out to maybe get prawns...seafood feast coming up! Another group of campers has turned up. It was nice to have the place to ourselves for a while. No prawns but mudcrab was a better option.....what a feast!....we are truly living off the land...pity we have to leave tomorrow. Cracked a bottle of champers to have with the oysters, lemon, worcestershire sauce and chillies with soy sauce, mudcrab and barra....such a hard life we lead.
Day 38
Off to Cooktown
Sighted huge pelicans, freshwater croc, jabiru, wedge tail eagle, snakes on the road, hawks
We are parked facing the wrong way with hazard lights on, on the first bit of bitumen for a long time cos a couple of women with a horse float flagged us down for help to change a tyre...Lawrie to the rescue! I'm now a certified traffic director! Found a lovely caravan park in Cook Town...the Peninsula.