Thursday 18th August – Day 26
We had a leisurely pack up this morning but we still seemed to get away about 8:30 so we must be getting better at it. We continued heading south keeping an eye out for the 12-Mile Hut and waterhole campsite, which is where we could have been staying, had we not stopped at Kalpowar. We saw no signs, and no indications that it even existed. Opposite the new Laura homestead there was a road to the campsite 15 km away, but according to the map, the 12-Mile Hut was supposed to be located near the road about 3-5 km from the homestead. Nothing! So, we kept going. Soon we came across a sign to the 6-Mile waterhole, which meant that we had passed the 12-mile one 6 miles ago! So, once again, we kept going looking for other things.
Next place we stopped at was the Old Laura homestead. This was an impressive homestead for something that started life in 1874 (or sometime around that date). It was a 2-story tin and wood shed with several out-buildings. We wandered around for a while, trying to picture what life would have been like back then.

After a few water crossings, we next called in at Horseshoe Lagoon and Lake Emma. Horseshoe had a lot of bird life, a lot of lilies and lovely paperbark forests around it. A Sea Eagle graced us with a show of how to catch a fish while still on the wing.

Emma Lake was a bit further down the track on the edge of Lakefield NP boundary. It was a huge lake, but no birds except for a couple of ducks. The scenery was chalk and cheese compared to Horseshoe Lagoon.

We stopped at Isabella Falls, which was only a little fall of about about 3m, but it was really pretty. The next thing on the agenda was Endeavour Falls. This was closer to Cooktown, but still we could only find Endeavour Falls Caravan Park, so we assumed it was close to that. We came across the park, so we stopped and went in. The falls were down the back, and even though they weren’t on the caravan park grounds, you had to walk through the park to get to them. The falls were not overly spectacular, but they were nice.

We called into the shop on the way out and they had a large Barra (about 1m long) in a tank. The shop lady said hold one of the prawns in the box on top near the water surface. Mark did so and he came to the surface with a great splash and sucked the prawn out of his grasp. It made us all jump, and splashed water all over him. From the falls it was a short drive of about 20kms into Cooktown. We hadn’t had lunch, so we checked into the Big4 Caravan Park, and headed into town for lunch.

Beryl has been suffering badly from sandfly bites and she has come up in big welts, and blisters. Today her left hand was red and badly swollen, so she wanted to go to the chemist. After lunch, we headed down to the chemist, who told her she must go and see the Dr. So she headed off to the Dr and he told her she has got several infections in some of the bites. He gave her some antibiotics.
We had some visitors to our tent after dark. We are on the edge of the property and back onto an industrial block. Soon after dark a wallaby wandered along our fence. Soon after that some Curlews walked past, and then soon after, a bandicoot scurried and dug around on our back tent section.