Cape York - Sunday 28/8/11

Wind blew up last night, tent was slapping, had to get up and tape down a strap - silver tape fixes everything.  Then we were awoken by a big torch being shone along the beach, don't know who & why or what they were looking for.  Craig jumped up in the early morning & went outside, I asked him what he was doing, his answer - someone was shining a torch on us, he could see a strange light out the window.  I informed him that was the light of dawn he could see through the window and that now he had let the mozzies in!  With all the activity during the night a sleep was needed this morning and it was Sunday anyway.

Must have been about 8am when Boris & I got up.  I was making coffee when I noticed a trail in the sand from hightide mark up to about 5m in front of the car.......  Showed Craig when he got up what I thought was a crocodile trail, but he informed me it was a turtle trail and she had laid eggs about 5m in front of the car.  Then we had a Brumby stallion & mare come in for breakfast, beautiful healthy looking horses.  We had spagetti on toast for breakfast, cleaned up, packed up the camper as the wind had come up & changed more to the north, so we were getting hammered a bit.  We're on holidays, don't need to be uncomfortable.
Decided we would go have a look at the She Oaks camp area this morning before Jim & Ev joined us.  Left about 10.30am and headed down the track to the She Oaks area, decided we'd keep going along the beach and have a look at Janie Creek while we were in the car.  The beach was extremely soft & hard going - yes, we had aired down the tyres.  It took about 1/2 hour of very corrugated & rough sand tracks to reach Janie Creek, where you can camp at the mouth.  Not really impressed with the camp spots & they were too close to the Turtle Research base, so we decided to go back & have a look around the She Oaks camp spots.
Back on the beach track we started calling Jim & Ev on the UHF, figured they should nearly be here.  It was a little over 1/2 hour to cover 13klm each way to Janie Creek. 
Heard Jim & Ev on the radio, but they were very scratchy & couldn't hear us.  We came across them on the beach at the end of the She Oaks camp area.  Had a chat about these camp areas & they had been talking to a local who strongly suggested going to Stone Crossing to camp - said it was beautiful, no permit, no problems with alcohol.  Decision made.




  We stopped back in at Cullen Point for lunch first, then headed out about 1.30pm onto the main road back toward Weipa.  Half hour downt he road we turned east onto the track to Stone Crossing.  We had about 38klms of track to reach Stone Crossing - nearly 2 hours later we finally arrived at 4pm, OMG what a rough track, but it was worthwhile - what a beautiful destination.  Checked out where to camp and setup.  Craig & Jim went off for a fish (Jim's quite a keen fisherman).  Jim managed to catch a couple of sarratoga. It was quite hot & muggy, so had a refreshing salad for dinner tonight - we had the fire going for ambience, but we all retired to bed quite early.

During the afternoon we witnessed the Irwin family in their natural habitat on the rivers edge.  The other side of the river is the start of the Steve Irwin Conservation Park and apparently they were staying there, giving talks in Weipa.  The Irwins we were told are doing a crocodile study in the river and had tagged something like 50 crocs.......