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 24th June 2026: had a relaxing start to the day then decided to go on the afternoon tour of Fairview Station in a large bus-like 4 WD, led by a guy who has a good driver but didn’t seem to know a whole lot about the place. There were only 4 of us on the tour, and I volunteered to open the gates we had to go through. This involved getting out and into the vehicle without an extra stepping stool and opening a variety of fastenings on a number of gates , only one being a padlock! Fortunately I could do it! The Station is 1,000,000 acres and home to 10,000 to 20,000 cattle Brahmans and a type of Red beef breed. At each muster, the cattle are first spotted by helicopter. They are never able to round up more than 70% of the herd at one time. They don’t use cattle dogs because they bite the cattle’s leg or nibble their ear and then that particular animal can’t be sold once it has bite masks. The cattle mainly go to cattle sales in Mareeba, with a few sold locally. We didn’t see much wild...
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 23rd June 2026: Today was a day of unanticipated events! We set off at 8.30 am from Bramwell Station Tourist park to head to Fairview Station 19km north of Laura, a 415 km trip. We joined the Old Telegraph Road which was pretty rough, but it got worse after the Batavia Downs Road turnoff. Along the way we saw another lace monitor lizard and a black snake on the road. We came to an unexpected un-signposted big dip with a river crossing at the bottom, giving us quite a jolt. We then came to a section where they were re-grading the road, and, in an unavoidable position in the middle of a narrow road, there was a large rock which we hit. When we could, we pulled over to find that our one shock-absorber on the driver’s side was now hanging loose!! We proceeded cautiously to Archer River where we asked for a mechanic. Glyn the bush mechanic who lives at the back of the roadhouse provided a bolt and re-attached the shock absorber, saying that it would last until Coen where there was a me...
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 22nd June 2026: We awoke to find that we were camped very close to the Old Telegraph Road, as oldish 4WD’s driven by youngish males at speed raced by our van! We made our way along the very corrugated road to Bramwell Station. The road passed through some patches of rainforest and we saw Brush Turkeys. We then passed through forest with grass trees and buttressed termite mounds. At Bramwell, we visited their museum with the history of the station up to the present day. We then went for a walk and saw brush turkeys and several what I think were Agile wallabies with a white chest and white stripe on their thighs. We then set about solving the issue of our Trüma hot water heater showing an error message! We could not identify the features Google suggested manipulating, but I remembered that we had been given a spare fuse, so we replaced the fuse and this must have rebooted the whole system and amazingly we then had hot water! We had a Vegie omelette for dinner and an early night- Fai...
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21st June 2026: Left  Punsand , coping with the water crossings and the corrugations  thanks to Nic’s excellent driving. We went into Bamaga to go to the IBIS supermarket, surprisingly well stocked, and even more surprising was the “Queensland freight discount”of $21 taken off a $128 total bill! We topped up with diesel, and fresh water at the BP service station and headed for the Jardine ferry, arriving at lunchtime for the ferrymen of course. We then proceeded to Fruit Bat Falls where we unhitched the caravan and just took the Prado down the Falls road(2.7 km). The Falls were an inviting place to swim which we did, despite some light rain falling at the time. We then drove the 6.7 km to Eliot and Twin Falls on Eliot Creek, which flows into the Jardine River. The underlying sandstone fissured in such a way to create the Eliot Falls and the Twin Falls, in a manner I have never seen before. Of great interest was the Pitcher plants along the way into each Falls. On the way out a...
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 20th June 2026: awoke in our beachfront site to a little rain but then blue sky! Nic wok early to watch the Soccer USA vs Australia. We said goodbye to our friends Bec and Wayne, and the we had to move sites as the caravan park is fully booked as many vehicles covered in red dust kept coming off the old telegraph track.I washed our clothes then  washed our 5 solar panels, using our KOH mop.  We had a walk along the beach watching out for crocs in the estuary. We ate at the restaurant- grilled mackerel, chis and salad with out favourite beer/ ginger beer. We then realised that we were about 30 years older than anyone in the room! No more grey nomads to be seen! Cleaning the solar panels “ no one over 50 should climb ladders”?? Punsand beach Me wearing Cape York merch! 
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 19th June 2026: Joined the Peddells tour again at guide Christine’s invitation to enable us to go into the museum at Green Hill fort- full of memorabilia dating from when the fort was built in 1893 due to a perceived Russian threat up to the time it was abandoned in the 1930’s. There was also reference to the 51st light infantry regiment- the Sarpeyes and their role in WW 2. We then had a coffee and savoury at MA - KAi before heading back to Island Stars to inquire about the painting I like with pictures of the totems of the various islands incorporated into it. I bought it and it turned out to be painted by Joey’s brother. joeys helper advised us to have a crayfish toastie and said he would prepare it for us if we came back at 12.15. Meanwhile, Friday is Flower day on TI, so I visited a flower dress shop-Mona’s- and bought a flowered dress for me and one for Frances. We returned to Island Stars for our delicious crayfish toastie, then hung around. For a while  bank at the no...
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 18th June 2026: we had a slow start to the day as it was raining! We had a coffee plus quiche/frittata at MA-KAi then headed for Island Stars where there was no info about the painting I was interested in, but we finally met Joey and we were able to join an Outback tour group to watch a cultural dance performance. Joey takes young boys, especially those who are a bit wayward and teaches them about their ancestry and to be proud of it and he teaches them traditional dances. They meet twice a week for instruction and he has put at least 40 dancers through his trainee programme. They have performed elsewhere in Australian and overseas. They were great! They performed dances of welcome , dance representing their knowledge of winds and knowledge of the tides and dances according to which island they came from, and they taught the audience a simple dance.The rhythm and singing were wonderful! We then decided to walk to Lions lookout (2 km) which had been the site of lookout and gun plac...
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