One of the many climbs

Crossing the Daintree River meant the end of the CREB

The boys excited to do Little Red Hill

Not sure if this photo shows the steepness of the incline up in the mountains

Tash, Me and the boys at Roaring Meg Falls

The CREB sign

The CREB

Soooo happy to be on the road again, lookout Lions Den, here we come. But, not before a quick detour to Cooktown first. Steve had been suffering tummy trouble since being on the OTL and all our supplies of Lomotil, Imodium and stuff were totally exhausted. He couldn’t cope any longer.

Before long, we pulled into the Lions Den Hotel and saw a friendly face waving us down. Shad, Tash and their boys Owen and Ryan were a family that we kept meeting up with ever since we left Cairns. It was good to see them again. We were about to set up camp next to them when the boys were berated by a random woman for hitting a tree with sticks. Heaven forbid!!! After a heated conversation between her and Steve about the intricacies of respecting fauna and Steve politely telling her to “just go away!” the camper was set up and we were down to the river for a swim.

Dinner at the pub was superb again and discussion soon led to whether we would do the CREB or not. Now, for Steve and I, travel has always been more about the track we take to get to a place rather than the destination itself. As they say – Life is the journey! The CREB has always been a must do and here it was on a platter. Sadly, we thought about how this track was to be done with the Frosts, however, since Coen we just weren’t going to be in the same place at the same time. Here we were at the top and it was going begging.

At this stage, we hadn’t heard from Terry and Shad was talking a good talk. Cam and Dan were on Steve’s back also – do it Dad, do it Dad, do it Dad!!! How can a fellow resist? That nights sleep was a restless one again. Steve was nervous about the CREB, but the blokes having a drunken weekend at the Lions Den that were still up ya-hooing and running between campsites at 2:00am also helped. I kept waiting for Steve to get up and have a go, but the next morning, everyone I spoke to said they were waiting for someone else to get up so there could be safety in numbers. No-one wanted to approach a drunken lot by themselves – good decision.

We had always thought the Frenchmans Track was going to be the ultimate track of this trip, but that was before we did the CREB. It was everything and then some…..

Stopping into Roaring Meg Falls first, we then hit the track. Full of bravado and trepidation. From here, the track took us 5 hours to complete. We averaged about 18 km’s an hour while doing continuous climbs and descents. A large part of the track felt like we were driving through tunnels of fernery. The roadside green was well above the roof of our car. It was lush and green which meant the tracks had maintained an obvious dampness since the last rains.

While letting some oncoming traffic pass us on the one lane track, we were told there was another convoy heading our way. After sending shout-outs over the two way for around 30 minutes we finally made connection and pulled over to let them through. Looking into the distance all of us marveled at the steepness of the track ahead. Big Red Hill (I think its called) appeared out of the overgrowth way up high and looked really imposing. It surely sobered the mood, but we knew the excitement was about to start. We headed off and were simply climbing and climbing, the car never came out of low range first with the locker being on for some parts of the undulations.

As our Johnnos trailed faithfully along behind us, we also had Shad and Tash a little further back. The chatter on the radio between us was excited and the men were pumped – everyone agreed on how special it was to be able to do this track. Little Red Hill was still ahead of us, and when we reached it, Steve went to walk the climb. I made Shad stay at the bottom as “Steve didn’t need any further encouragement to do this hill!” It was undulating, steep and narrow. The climb seemed to go on forever. Steve came back rubbing his hands together and just said – Let’s do this. Shad never had a doubt, he was in regardless. Tash and I exchanged nervous glances….

Steve threw the lockers on, low range first was selected. There was nothing more to do than put the foot down and go for it. As the Paj bounced and revved the whole way up, the boys and I cheered and yelled in encouragement as we held on to the panic bars for dear life. Surprisingly, it was Dan that became upset during this climb. He has been in the front seat with Steve for every crossing or climb during this trip, but I think this climb went on for so long that he became a bit overwhelmed.

We pulled over at the top and stood with cameras ready for Shad’s attempt. Again, the Hi-Lux bounced and revved its way up and word is he laughed the whole way. Not sure that Tash was laughing as hard.

At this point we thought it was a matter of crossing the Daintree and the track was over. Not so, the track just kept on giving – climb after climb, descent after descent. It seemed it was never going to end. Eventually we arrived at the Daintree River and agreed that we would pull over on the blacktop to air up. At that point we cracked a beer and agreed that was one of our best experiences ever. Shad and Tash proved to be fabulous traveling partners for this part of the trip and we were lucky to have shared it with them. Would love to do another track with them someday…

We were on the blacktop now and just hightailing it back to Cairns. About 40 km’s out of Cairns, we started hearing a slight grinding noise coming from the front of the car. After a while it started becoming more constant and louder. Cripes – what can go wrong now? We stopped a few times and Steve had a look under the car to make sure we weren’t going to lose a wheel or something. All seemed OK. Driving off again, we radioed out “Shad, are you still out there?” We were preparing ourselves to either set up on the roadside for the night, or face another lonely, slow drive not knowing if we would make it or not. Gratefully, Shad answered. “Sure am”. He doubled back, and before long they were both under the car as Tash kept me company. They discovered we had a split in the CV boot that had allowed water and grit into the CV. I think every water crossing we had made since leaving Broome had probably left a deposit in it. Wondering what we do next Shad simply stated “We’re in this together”, so followed us into Cairns and made sure we were safe and sound. Gosh that road can be dark and scarey when things aren’t going well and we can never feel more grateful for Shad’s support.

Rolling into Cairns about 9:00pm, it was an ultra quick set up and we fell in to one of the deepest, tiredest sleeps since the Wenlock.