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I have just got back from a Trip to the Tip both driving and riding bikes, it was great and the roads (Development Road) are pretty good in fact some sections are better than any bit of black top you can find.
Alot of the pics that i have taken are similar to those submitted by Crammy in his trip report so i won't add them again also i have no idea how to do that once i figure it out i will add a few. (i worked out how to add pictures)
We left Cairns and headed for the CREB track but unfortunately it had been raining for most of the week they opened the track and we couldn't even get the vehicles up the first hill, we decided that it would be safer to send them the long way to Cooktownvia the Daintree. We rode the track on the bikes and i am glad we did not send the cars as we struggled in places to get the bikes through it was slow & slippery especially Red Hill.
Stumped at the start of the CREB
From the Lions Den we all had lunch and headed for Cooktown and then onto Isabella Falls for the first night, what a nice spot.
Isabella Falls
The next day was up through Starkey to Cape Melville the road was slow and took around 10 hours to cover the 200kms and 1 bent chassis on the Old Man's Hilux 2 hours into day 2. When we got to Wookooka Station we meet a guy who had been at the Cape for 5 days of 25 knots so we decided to head for Lakefield for a couple of days fishing.
Lakefield
Lakefield is a great spot and we had a good camp spot, no fish but a good rest day.
From Lakefield we ran to Chilli Beach, i have to say i was pretty disappointed, it was dirty the camp sites were full of rubbish and the beach was full of rubbish washed up by the tides including about 20 000 left thongs, i am still at a loss as to why people can't take there rubbish with them given that there is a tip on the way out from Chilli Beach.
Camp at Chilli
Rubbish on the Beach
From Chilli we were heading for Elliot Falls via the Frenchmans Track (Bikes Only) We did not want to risk the Hilux to any more real rough roads. 8kms from the end of the track we had a rider go down and needed to be air lifted out to Wepia, a special thanks goes to the Blue Mountains 4WD club who came along after the accident and had a SAT phone to call the ambulance and get the chopper in, they also helped clear the site for the chopper to land and that took a heap of work.
We had a slight detour to Wepia to check on the injured rider and spent 4 days fishing around wepia, my first trip to Wepia and the Caravan Park there is a pretty nice place to camp.
Once we flew the injured rider back to Cairns we left Wepia and headed for Elliot Falls via the Old Telegraph Track. The track was slow going but worth the drive, the creek crossings were easy and the water was beautiful, make sure you walk the creek crossings, Nolan Brook crossing claimed a new nissan patrol that failed to walk it first, when we got there he had been parked for a day and a half after spending 5 hours with his steering wheel under water waiting for someone to come along to pull him out.
Elliot Overflow
First Creek on OTT
Entering Gunshot
Cypress Creek
Leaving Cannibal
Elliot and Fruit Bat are worth the trip just for them.
Elliot Falls
Fruit Bat
Gunshot
Nolan Brook Over Flow
Nolan Brook
Easy Way Out
Elliot to the Tip was the next run and the roads were all real good until we crossed the Jardine River the corrugations got worse after that. The tip has no signage so when you hit the beach it takes a little bit to work out where you need to go to get to the tip. We stopped that night a Punsand Bay, you have to visit that spot it is just amazing, we had 3 camp sites that could have catered for 30 people for $50, we got in late so we decided to eat in the bar and what a feed for $25. The factilites are run down but clean and you get a a hot shower and toilets, after riding a bike for 1500km and sucking dirt i though they were fine, i will be taking my wife back next year so they can't be to bad.
Punsand Bay as we arrived
From Punsand we headed for Vryilla Point for a few days fishing before heading home if you have not been you have to go it is as one guy said Hevan on a Stick, there is fesh water soak up the top end so you can get fresh water that you can boil for drinking and cooking with, next time i go back i will be taking a spare plastic 44 and dig a new soak.
Bridge into Vryilla Point
Pascoe River
Sunset at Vryilla Point
Stuck and Out at Vryilla
After that we headed for home stopping a Musgrave Station for the night and then into Cairns. The Trip took 2 weeks and was no where near long enough we missed Captain Billy but i will get there nexy year.
A Little Dust
All the Roads i thought were pretty good and the guy at the servo in Laura said it will be bitumen to Laura by May next year, the bitumen is comming and there is nothing we can do to stop it.
Gear, we used the winch's twice the Prado was towing the motorbike trailer and it was 2.3m wide and weighed 1.5t not the best in soft sand. No flat tyres on any of the vehicles expect on the trip from Brisbane to Cairns. The Nankang Mudstars i ran on the Prado and the trailer and they worked a treat. I do buy 50k worth of tyres a year for my business (trailer manufacturer) and i get them at the right price, i can afford to throw them after every trip and and still be half the price of the Coopers or Goodyears etc, having said that they have at leaft 2 more trips in them before i will scrap them so they are pretty good value for money. The Puncture repair kit stayed in the trailer.
I built a set of custom draws for the back to sit the fridge on and carry the essentials.
The Bullbar saved me a couple of times from "Stationary Trees(not me driving) and Emu's and Horses.
The next gear fitted will be diff lockers, we certinally could have used the at Vryilla when we got bogged in the soft sand.
For some reason Toyota gets pretty peved when you drive back in with the extra's. I had to listen to 15 miuntes of how i may have voided the warranty on my car because i have fitted all the after market gear.
I would not go north without carrying plenty of water we had 150ltrs in tanks under the trailer and patrol.
The OME suspension was fantastic, i drove the car from Vryilla Point home to Cairns and over those bloody corrugations it was out of this world. I would recomend going with the 200 rear coils rather than the intermediates if you intend on towing anything with a reasonable draw bar weight, we ran 220kg.
The car was 6 weeks old when we left and it spent 2 weeks at the panel shop after a guy ran a red light at 2 weeks old and wiped out the driver side and the rear, after the trip i need to fix the rear again after it was backed into a post but other than that we received no other damaged apart from the Red Bull Dust being everywhere, including the gauges, how they get in there i have no idea.
After this trip a SAT phone will be purchased and we will never leave home without it, i carry and EPIRB but not the same as the phone and i never thought that i would need one but the accident prved that you can never tell.
As final foot note due to the number of guys (7) we took a carton of eggs 12 x 12 and even in the prado they don't travel well. We didn't break them but there was not to many with a yoke, they pretty much just some out a scrambled straight from the shell.
Alot of the pics that i have taken are similar to those submitted by Crammy in his trip report so i won't add them again also i have no idea how to do that once i figure it out i will add a few. (i worked out how to add pictures)
We left Cairns and headed for the CREB track but unfortunately it had been raining for most of the week they opened the track and we couldn't even get the vehicles up the first hill, we decided that it would be safer to send them the long way to Cooktownvia the Daintree. We rode the track on the bikes and i am glad we did not send the cars as we struggled in places to get the bikes through it was slow & slippery especially Red Hill.
Stumped at the start of the CREB
From the Lions Den we all had lunch and headed for Cooktown and then onto Isabella Falls for the first night, what a nice spot.
Isabella Falls
The next day was up through Starkey to Cape Melville the road was slow and took around 10 hours to cover the 200kms and 1 bent chassis on the Old Man's Hilux 2 hours into day 2. When we got to Wookooka Station we meet a guy who had been at the Cape for 5 days of 25 knots so we decided to head for Lakefield for a couple of days fishing.
Lakefield
Lakefield is a great spot and we had a good camp spot, no fish but a good rest day.
From Lakefield we ran to Chilli Beach, i have to say i was pretty disappointed, it was dirty the camp sites were full of rubbish and the beach was full of rubbish washed up by the tides including about 20 000 left thongs, i am still at a loss as to why people can't take there rubbish with them given that there is a tip on the way out from Chilli Beach.
Camp at Chilli
Rubbish on the Beach
From Chilli we were heading for Elliot Falls via the Frenchmans Track (Bikes Only) We did not want to risk the Hilux to any more real rough roads. 8kms from the end of the track we had a rider go down and needed to be air lifted out to Wepia, a special thanks goes to the Blue Mountains 4WD club who came along after the accident and had a SAT phone to call the ambulance and get the chopper in, they also helped clear the site for the chopper to land and that took a heap of work.
We had a slight detour to Wepia to check on the injured rider and spent 4 days fishing around wepia, my first trip to Wepia and the Caravan Park there is a pretty nice place to camp.
Once we flew the injured rider back to Cairns we left Wepia and headed for Elliot Falls via the Old Telegraph Track. The track was slow going but worth the drive, the creek crossings were easy and the water was beautiful, make sure you walk the creek crossings, Nolan Brook crossing claimed a new nissan patrol that failed to walk it first, when we got there he had been parked for a day and a half after spending 5 hours with his steering wheel under water waiting for someone to come along to pull him out.
Elliot Overflow
First Creek on OTT
Entering Gunshot
Cypress Creek
Leaving Cannibal
Elliot and Fruit Bat are worth the trip just for them.
Elliot Falls
Fruit Bat
Gunshot
Nolan Brook Over Flow
Nolan Brook
Easy Way Out
Elliot to the Tip was the next run and the roads were all real good until we crossed the Jardine River the corrugations got worse after that. The tip has no signage so when you hit the beach it takes a little bit to work out where you need to go to get to the tip. We stopped that night a Punsand Bay, you have to visit that spot it is just amazing, we had 3 camp sites that could have catered for 30 people for $50, we got in late so we decided to eat in the bar and what a feed for $25. The factilites are run down but clean and you get a a hot shower and toilets, after riding a bike for 1500km and sucking dirt i though they were fine, i will be taking my wife back next year so they can't be to bad.
Punsand Bay as we arrived
From Punsand we headed for Vryilla Point for a few days fishing before heading home if you have not been you have to go it is as one guy said Hevan on a Stick, there is fesh water soak up the top end so you can get fresh water that you can boil for drinking and cooking with, next time i go back i will be taking a spare plastic 44 and dig a new soak.
Bridge into Vryilla Point
Pascoe River
Sunset at Vryilla Point
Stuck and Out at Vryilla
After that we headed for home stopping a Musgrave Station for the night and then into Cairns. The Trip took 2 weeks and was no where near long enough we missed Captain Billy but i will get there nexy year.
A Little Dust
All the Roads i thought were pretty good and the guy at the servo in Laura said it will be bitumen to Laura by May next year, the bitumen is comming and there is nothing we can do to stop it.
Gear, we used the winch's twice the Prado was towing the motorbike trailer and it was 2.3m wide and weighed 1.5t not the best in soft sand. No flat tyres on any of the vehicles expect on the trip from Brisbane to Cairns. The Nankang Mudstars i ran on the Prado and the trailer and they worked a treat. I do buy 50k worth of tyres a year for my business (trailer manufacturer) and i get them at the right price, i can afford to throw them after every trip and and still be half the price of the Coopers or Goodyears etc, having said that they have at leaft 2 more trips in them before i will scrap them so they are pretty good value for money. The Puncture repair kit stayed in the trailer.
I built a set of custom draws for the back to sit the fridge on and carry the essentials.
The Bullbar saved me a couple of times from "Stationary Trees(not me driving) and Emu's and Horses.
The next gear fitted will be diff lockers, we certinally could have used the at Vryilla when we got bogged in the soft sand.
For some reason Toyota gets pretty peved when you drive back in with the extra's. I had to listen to 15 miuntes of how i may have voided the warranty on my car because i have fitted all the after market gear.
I would not go north without carrying plenty of water we had 150ltrs in tanks under the trailer and patrol.
The OME suspension was fantastic, i drove the car from Vryilla Point home to Cairns and over those bloody corrugations it was out of this world. I would recomend going with the 200 rear coils rather than the intermediates if you intend on towing anything with a reasonable draw bar weight, we ran 220kg.
The car was 6 weeks old when we left and it spent 2 weeks at the panel shop after a guy ran a red light at 2 weeks old and wiped out the driver side and the rear, after the trip i need to fix the rear again after it was backed into a post but other than that we received no other damaged apart from the Red Bull Dust being everywhere, including the gauges, how they get in there i have no idea.
After this trip a SAT phone will be purchased and we will never leave home without it, i carry and EPIRB but not the same as the phone and i never thought that i would need one but the accident prved that you can never tell.
As final foot note due to the number of guys (7) we took a carton of eggs 12 x 12 and even in the prado they don't travel well. We didn't break them but there was not to many with a yoke, they pretty much just some out a scrambled straight from the shell.
Snaga
as previously said... the worst part would be missing the rest of the trip.
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