On The Road: Be Prepared

We left our camp at Lakelands just after eight.

Here we witnessed a most peculiar thing.

Camped in tents right next to us were three or four couples in four wheel drives. They were heading for Cape York Peninsula as a group.

We have briefly contemplated a trip to the Cape but have decided against it for a number of reasons. One of the main reason is that we would prefer to travel with other perhaps more experienced four wheel drivers. And there are the time constraints as well. Another reason is that we're not really sure if we're adequately equipped for the adventure.

But, as we sat and had our usual breakfast it was quite interesting to watch these couples pack up their tents and vehicles for their departure.

Some of them looked like they had never set up or dismantled a tent and were relying on others to show them how.

Also, each couple seemed to be doing their own thing.

Finally all of the couples except for one had cleared their site and were ready to depart.

The last couple, well...He wandered off to the ablutions block to spruce himself up and left Her to pack the car.

Eventually he returned while she struggled to fit everything back into the car. Most items were packed into plastic storage containers and two or three were not going to fit back into the car...there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the packing and Mr Camper had absolutely no idea how everything was going to fit back into the car.

Their fellow campers had left the camp ground to wait for the couple by the side of the road. It wasn't long before one of the couples returned to see what the hold up was.

We had packed and left before Mr and Mrs Camper had solved their storage problems.

Also, one of the other couples, we noticed, had packed just about every item they owned into numerous blue “green” shopping bags. I couldn't help wondering how they were going to know which BLUE bag had the item they would eventually want to seek out....oh, how I would love to be a mosquito on the ceiling on one of their vehicles as they trek the Cape!

The heavy closed in rainforest we've encountered over the last few days eventually gives way to open, lightly wooded and undulating landscape as we make our way towards Cairns via the Peninsula Development Road.

At Mareeba after a bit of a drive around the town, we lunched with the Butcher Birds at Skybury Coffee Plantation, had afternoon tea at Mareeba Wetlands Nature Reserve overlooking the beautiful lake then returned to Cairns to find it raining!