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
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.
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
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
We were on the blacktop now and just hightailing it back to
Rolling into