We started the day in Laura and before getting to Cooktown learned there was some significant examples of Aboriginal rock art only 15 minutes down the road. The Split Rock art galleries are the most famous of a collection of sites up here in Cape York and are listed by UNESCO as being among the top 10 sites in the world.
It is a self guided up hill walk to the art sites but worth it. My first time viewing rock art and when viewing history I always love taking my imagination back in time to the people who gather here in this place and created these painting.
Staring out at the same view, walking this same piece of earth. Only separated by thousands of year. Charlotte shares a love of history especially when it’s bought to life.
Our stay in Cooktown is only brief this time. We had left the bikes here with Nico the fish guy. Knowing we’d have little opportunity to use them up the cape it seemed silly to carry the extra weight and get them all dusty.
We had loved Cooktown and wished we had longer to linger but time with family and a new adventure awaited. We overnighted at the same caravan park, requesting a sunny site this time to try and counter the sandflies that mauled us last time. Apparently they like the shade but really there wasn’t much time sit amoungst them anyway. With shopping and washing to be done we didn’t hang about camp much.
The next morning was an early start and we didn’t even fuss with breakfast hoping to grab the bikes early and still have time to grab a delious bite at our fav little spot, the Driftwood cafe. Yum, just as amazing as we remembered. The people, view, food and coffee all completely noteworthy.
With only a short drive down the road to Mt Carbine, Brooklyn Wildlife Sanctuary to stay with Meg and Andrew it was a relaxing start to the day. The drive was spectacular as you come through the ranges and down the other side. Views across the plain and across to the next set of ranges. We did have a near miss on this stretch though with a rather large cow 🐄 standing in the middle of the road right on a bend. Lucky for us he was on the other side but we put the call out over the radio anyway for any other vechicle traveling to cautious.
That night being a Friday we cracked out the pizza oven and shared a night of pizza, chat and the starry starry sky with great Meg, Andrew, Jack and the call of some wild cats fighting in the not to far distance. The young cousins played and watch a movie while the older cousin sat around the fire a caught up.
Beautiful country this and fastinating to learn about it and the management of the land from Andrew and Meg. Very much looking forward to exploring and learning more tomorrow.
Aboriginal drawings fantastic thousands of years old amazing. Great catching up with friends for you all.the cow had a lucky escape he he