“ it’s just a mystery.. “

Sitting on a bean bag on a friend’s verandah overlooking the Woobadda Creek, I am reflecting over the past few weeks.

The Woobadda Creek is close to Wajul Wajul Community on the Bloomfield River in far North Queensland and is reached taking the famous Bloomfield Track.

We drove this Track about 17 years ago on our way to Cape York with our kids. This time in 2002 we drove an old Toyota Landcruiser (FJ63) without airco and sleeping in two small dome-tents.

I never forget this Track as it was our first experience that time of river crossings and till now I remember the excitement when we crossed Emmagen Creek. After this Creek the road goes up and up with crazy curves and dips before you know which gear to use!

This time this Track was much more easier, either we are more experienced our the Track has been seriously upgraded.

I miss the kid as we had the best time ever and had so many adventures, travelling the Old telegraph Road in Cape York was definitely one of the highlights.

As it’s now just the two of us and it's so very different travelling without them. It's almost a whole new ball-game and we have so much more time!

We both felt a sort of sadness and emptiness , especially at the beginning of this trip. But by talking about this 'missing' we both realised we need to move on and carry these treasured memories with us.

Just before we left home we had the wonderful news that we would become grandparents.

During a FaceTime session very early in the morning we where able to watch the ‘gender revealing party’ what our son and his girlfriend had organised. We all cheered and screamed as the big black ballon popped open with pink coloured streamers flying around the room. “A girl, yes it’s a girl we all screamed!”

What a great moment but also very difficult emotionally as we are so far away.

Later sitting by myself, in this beautiful spot I felt tears running down my face..sometimes I miss my kids so much! Sad not to be there to celebrate this wonderful news.

But I’m going way ahead of myself.

Finally we reached Carmilla it was the 20th of November and warmly welcomed by our friends Rensina and Allen. We had never met but on Facebook!

We called them our ‘LandRover Mentors’ as many times we chatted about our car via Facebook as we had so many questions and Broome is not what you call LandRover friendly. ‘You drive a Toyota not a LandRover,’ yes I heard that all the time but I love the look and feel of this old Defender and maybe we are old school and don't care about not having airco.

I love the roughness and simplicity, it makes you feel alive! , so I was happy to meet some people ‘on the other side of Australia !’, to chat about our car.

Rensina even advised me while we where bidding for the car on the online auction as I had no clue how and what to do!

The next morning Allen and Romani did a test-drive, as we had a serious problem with our steering and we both where very worried about it.

Allen found it straight away!

The drop arm nut was loose and one of the lower crankshaft nuts too. Nuts and bolts where tightened and Romani was given some 'Diesel motor' lessons in the shed.

After a few more test-drives on the hills to their property, which is only accessible with 4x4 all seemed fine and we both were very relieved.

Allen now in his seventies, is a pioneer and driven LandRovers all his life.

I’m just reading Allen’s book ‘Safariman” (by Allen Mulder - I can highly recommend this book!)

Allen mentions that he was lucky to be born at the beginning of the age of four-wheel-drive vehicles and where he writes about his expeditions, which started in the late 60’s.

When our car was fixed he said “I would not even have driven this car to Mackay, I have no idea how you guys drove 4000 km with it!”. Well I must admit that I had a very stiff neck and shoulders (for over two weeks) of holding the steering wheel straight!!

We spent almost a week at their lovely property which is situated on 800 acres of lush forest in Carmilla, QLD. Romani and Allen spent their time in Allen’s shed which was a place full of LandRover memorabilia. Rensina and I had lots of catching up to do and the week just past so fast. Allen left after two days as he flew to Bulgaria to drive his truck to Morocco where Rensina would meet him later.

After saying our goodbye’s we needed to go to Mission Beach as we have a house there and it needed some maintenance. But first we did some sightseeing around the area and visited a few beaches and stayed two nights at Cape Hillsborough.

Personally I don’t like to stay at a Caravan Park but this time we did. As this was the spot to see kangaroos on the beach and both mornings I was awake before 5 AM. I must admit it’s a bit touristic (which I normally would avoid) but I just really wanted to see it again as we had visited Cape Hillsborough before with our kids and we’d had a great time.

It was a wonderful sight to see the kangaroos on the beach…yes I know it’s touristic, but I loved it :)-

At the end of November we headed back to the Red Lilly, (the Cane Farm where we had stayed before in Mount Kelly).

It’s such a peaceful place and that’s why we decided to stay there two more nights before heading to Mission Beach.

I was a bit grumpy before as I like to smoke a pipe sometimes and I’d lost that pipe. I thought I lost it after we had left Red Lilly the first time. But where to look? It’s looking in a haystack…

When we pulled up, deciding to go to back to the same spot in the shade of a big paperbark tree it’s where Romani spotted my little pipe, next to where we had cooked on the fire, about two weeks ago!

That must’ve been the reason why we went back, unbelievable and we had driven over a 1000 km!

Later on we met Arthur, the farmer again and this time he took us in his 4x4 and showed us around on his property and fed a group of wallabies some mongbeans.

Truly a beautiful place and with a rich history. Arthur told the story of James Morill (1824-1865) a sailor from England who stranded in this area and lived for seventeen years with the local Aboriginal people. (James used to eat wallabies!)

Later his caretaker came by on a four wheeler and dropped of some melons. ‘These are seconds, so take as many as you want, as otherwise will give them to the cattle”, Ilze said.

Later when we took a walk, we saw the cows and goats eating loads of melons! I was sure that the two goats where pregnant as they looked like they where going to explode any minute but Ilze said 'that's because of the melons!"

Ilze (66 yr) and her husband Sam (72 yr) have been caretakers at Red Lily for over thirteen years and they live in an old caravan in a shed with their huge dog Benjamin. (Benjamin is a cross between a Great Pyrenean Mountain Dog and a Maremma Sheepdog and very big!)

Before this job, Ilze and Sam used to live - for 32 years - in a caravan park.

Such a different lifestyle than we are used to but very interesting for sure.

Later Sam invited us to muster the sheep back from the property into a pen “as it’s safer at night, as there might be dingo’s outside” Sam said.

When Sam jumped onto his four wheeler just after five in the afternoon, he yelled ‘ into the bed !”, “into the bed !” and the sheep just ran towards him from all over the place and followed him into the pen. (It was soo funny!)

The sheep looked different than I’ve ever seen before, as half the wool was hanging off their bodies, so it looked they were wearing little jackets! “

"They scrape their bodies on the trees and the wool will come off, as we don’t shave them”, Sam said.

Later on in the afternoon we noticed large distance fires which was cane being burned. I wondered about all the animals who would live in it? The fires where so high and even it was far away we noticed little black pieces drifting slowly through the air.

Than it was time to go to Mission Beach, I was excited to see a friend who lives in the area but less excited about the fact that we maybe had to do some maintanance at our house!

However Romani was very keen to see our property again and his hands where itching . As he is a “very passionate handyman.”

For almost nine days we worked on the property. We camped in a small campground overlooking the beautiful beach in Bingil Bay. We made a list what needed to be done.

A deck needed serious repairs and in the meantime I decided a lick of paint wouldn’t harm either. Than an air conditioner broke down, which was not planned and slowly we worked through our maintanance list and ticked off the jobs done. I can tell you I was happy to wave Mission Beach goodbye.

Unfortunately we never seen our friend as she was too busy, so we headed up to a next friend in Port Douglas.

Driving along the coast towards Port Douglas we passed ‘fancy’ Palm Cove and decided to have a rest a bit further north at Ellis Beach.

Beautiful waving palm trees invited us to go for a swim, where we realised there was a ‘special area’ to swim in and would be ‘Stingray free.’

As this time, between November to May is named ‘’high season’ for Marine Stingers. Box Jellyfish and Irukandji are potentially dangerous, therefore ‘Stinger Nets’ are placed in certain area’s in the Ocean to swim in.

W’d never swam in a Stinger Net before and after a dip we laid down on the soft sand.

After our refreshing dip I took a little walk on the beach and walking back it seemed Romani looked a bit ’strange’ and I wondered what was up. It looked as he was in pain and he replied by ‘ I think I’ve been stand by a Stingray !”

You got to be joking I screamed ! This is the first time ever we swam in that stupid net and now you are stang ?

The LifeSaving lady poured a litre of vinegar over the 4 long marks on Romani’s hip and mentioned dryly “ if you feel strange and feverish after about an hour you better call the ambulance”.

I just stared at her and asked her if she should not tell all the other people still swimming in the net that someone was stang ?

“Nah happens sometimes, it’s just a small one”..”as the Stinger Nets holes can’t be made any smaller as the nets would glog too much”, she replied.

Also this visit to a friend didn’t really work out as what we expected. Do I have expectations? Yes, I have. But I am annoyed about the fact of visiting ‘friends’ and than suddenly there are all these excuses. Our home has always been open, time or no time, but I guess we are not all the same.

We waved Port Douglas goodbye and hit the road again.

We headed for Cape Tribulation. It was 35 years ago (awww I sound so old now!) when we had hitchhiked there for the first time.

It was unspoiled beauty those days, no bitumen and camping was permitted ‘behind’ the tree line. It was one of those places you just couldn’t forget, it was unspoiled beauty.

We drove here too with our kids, seventeen years ago and even than it already had changed.

This time the ‘unspoiled beauty’ has been taken over by ‘B&B’s on the beach, Outdoor Activities and all the other crap what takes away the real essence of a place.

Small tracks to the beach where closed and even the so called Cape Tribulation Camping was blocked with sheet metal. A small camp named ’Noah’s Camp was open but you could smell the toilet from far away! So called National Park Camping was not for us this time.

We just couldn’t find a way onto the beach and we kept driving and driving till we realised we passed Cape Trip!

I was pretty annoyed about it all as I’d been looking forward to Cape Tribulation, especially after all the work w’d done in Mission Beach.

A next visit was planned and we hoped this visit would be a bit more successful. A friend of a friend we had met once. He lived North of Cape Tribulation around the Bloomfield area and keeping our fingers crossed we phoned him that we where very close and the reply was very welcoming!.

And this is where I started, sitting on a bean bag on a friend’s verandah overlooking the Woobadda Creek, I am reflecting over the past few weeks.

Eleven days have past and we are still here staying at our friends house. Kevo lives on a big property with his four hunting dogs.

”I am a hunter and a survivor”, Kevo told me. He takes his dogs on regular ‘wild pig’ hunts and he showed us his large collection of antlers, guns and rifles.

During these moments and meeting these, for me, visual interesting characters I decided to photograph them and I always ask them if I can see where they live, particularity I love their sheds!

This collection is slowly growing and I’m really enjoying doing this and it’s all part of this journey anyway. And it gives a bit of insight of the people who 'catch my eye'.

I have a seperate section on this website- 'People who catched my eye"

Below is part of this series.

Romani couldn’t sit still and decided to do some maintanance for Kevo while I washed his four hunting dogs with Coconut Shampoo and walked them. Kevo’s reply to this was that they are hunting dogs, not girly dogs!

Saying this we where taken on a pig hunt down the Upper Daintree Road , all four dogs where taken, wearing Pig Dog Collars.

As soon we jumped out of the car the dogs started to do their job. Not long after one of the dogs came back with blood on his mouth! But where was the pig? Unfortunately we didn’t find the pig, we waited some time for the second dog to return and again no pig. This whole pig hunting is new to me and also for Romani. I can say we are not the ‘hunting types’ as it all seems a bit hard to me and the dogs don’t have the life I used to give to our dog. I love to cuddle and play but this was not the case here.

Than we decided to do a bit of four wheel drive practicing and we went up the Upper Daintree Road, which starts close to the Wujal Wujal Community, a small Aboriginal Community on the Bloomfield River. (Wujal Wujal means ‘Many Falls’ )

The locals call the beginning of this Track “The Zig Zag”.

A very steep climbing track and I must say Romani did a great job (my turn is next ! aaaghh).

There the Upper Daintree Rd. leads into the legendary Creb Track, which is 71 km long and ends just North of Daintree Village and is regarded as one of Australia’s most spectacular and challenging four-wheel-drive trails!

We went to two different spots and first visited the deep rock pool at the top of the Roaring Megg Falls.

Locals call this the ‘Beach’ as there is a little beach next to the rock pool.

The Roaring Meg Falls are a beautiful and spectacular sight and can only be accessed by a four wheel drive track off the famous Creb Track.

To be able to reach this rock pool we needed to drive over a very rocky and steep descending track and where very excited that Romani ‘passed the test’ !

A cold beer was well deserved and we enjoyed a proper cool off while sitting, laughing, joking and drinking in the rock pool.

Again Romani was put to the test, this time uphill on the rocky road, which he passed with flying colours. After a bumpy drive we had to go on foot to reach the top of the Falls.

Unfortunately some people have died at these Falls (3) as the boulders are very slippery in some places and it’s high too! The drop is about 30 meters.

Christmas we spent at Kevo’s friends. This time we went by boat and had a lot of fun going there. I really wondered how to get back on a pitch dark night, on a boat, over the Bloomfield River, sure we would consume a ‘bit’ of alcohol!

The Bloomfield River is considered the best croc-spotting river in the Cairns Region! brrrrr

I didn’t want to think too much about it…

His friend picked us up at the other side and I could not believe how steep the driveway was to his friends house. Definitively would not attempt to drive this, either up-or down-after a party! We had fun for sure going back on that boat that night!!

A few days later Kevo took us on a fishing-camping trip to Mangkalba (Cedar Bay) Ngalba Bulal National Park), about 40 minutes in the boat from his house. Two of his dogs came too in the boat, Nitro and Slaye where wearing their special Pig Dog Collars, even on the boat.

What a beautiful dense coastline! And what a spectacular National Park which is only accessible by boat or you need to be a very fit bushwalker to reach the beach, as the walk is very steep! We camped at a magic spot under a group of Pandanus trees overlooking the beach.

When we took a walk through the dense forest we noticed several old camps and Kevo told us that in the seventies many hippies used to live here but after a few years police and custom agents, wearing paramilitary gear, raided the hippie camps at dawn as was said that they were squatters and living on crown land. But the local story is that Cedar Bay Bill had a lease on the land, he let the hippies live there! When Cedar Bay Bill passed away a headstone was placed near the Pandanus trees.

Now all whats left are some old mattresses and pots and pans.

We went fishing at the Great Barrier Reef and visited 'Small Hope Island".

The next morning Nitro the Wolfhound went missing. We looked and walked, called his name, whistled and looked our eyes out of our head!

We than went on the boat to check the coastline but without any luck. It was such an unreal feeling…

A very sad ending of such lovely few days.

Kevo went the next day again for a search, again 40 minutes in the boat. He left his t-shirt and some bacon, both hanging in a tree in the hope the dog would’ve come back to the camp.

When he arrived the bacon was still there. What could’ve happened? A croc got him, he got lost, we don’t know and are sad, very sad, as it’s just a mystery!!