Limping back to Cairns

Our last night was at the Seisia Holiday Park, right next to the wharf. We made friends with an ex Tassie cop who had toured the whole way on his heavy motorbike and was returning on the freighter to Cairns because he was tired of mad drivers trying to kill him on the dirt PDR. He mentioned he was not the only one lucky to escape injury: a dirt bike tour company had recently organised a trip where one rider hit and killed a cow, another hit bull dust and broke a femur, and another came off and broke his ribs.

We also befriended a travelling French couple - the husband was once the Antarctic icebreaker, l'Astrolabe's French captain. When that job finished, he got offered a similar position on the Aurora Australis, the Aussie Antarctic research vessel. He recounted tales of his younger 'sale gueule' experience toting a gun in the Amazon to see off garimpeiros. His immediate concern was a gearbox that had packed up and was threatening to blow the budget by several thousand dollars.

There are basically two mechanics on the Tip and their main reason for being is living off recovery, salvage, and disposal of PDR and Old Telegraph Track (OTT) disasters. Everyone has a story of drowned cars, total writeoffs, replaced ECUs, and the OTT happily consumes them all. Nolans Brook is the devil's main culprit with at least 30 victims in the early season and dozens more later. Open your wallet - $7000 to get recovered out of Nolans.

Nursing our trusty 4wd in limphome mode, we get it hoisted on board the weekly Seisia-Cairns freighter, m/s Trinity Bay.

Loading takes all day and includes other cars, frozen crayfish shipments, and empty fuel containers - TI and the Tip consume huge amounts of fuel for generators daily.

Major highlight of the day is when a small flock of Palm cockatoos arrive to see us off.

Before we leave, we shoot the breeze with Tim, a local fishing charter owner and his Brazilian wife Simone at their Gift Shop. After 18 years' fishing according to the cycles of the moon, Tim is ready to retire.

The Trinity Bay departs around 7.30 in the evening and we socialise with some 20 passengers, a motley mob of those on a cruise to and from Cairns; returning travellers not keen to take their car and caravan combinations back down the punishing PDR; and those like us who have sustained damage and need to limp home. Life on the ocean wave is lived according to a regular feeding bonanza followed by a nap every few hours whilst the bar is open for most of the day and into the evening.

Three days pass in a blur as we chug along the coastline of waving palms, thick forest, and remote sand mines. We visit the bridge for a welcome from the Captain and a tour round the radar, maps, and assorted technology.

Sometimes, the ship carries live Cape York nuisance crocs, who receive a regular daily hosing down on deck, for onward shipment to Cairns croc farms for breeding. We are all impressed by their amazing homing instinct. When persistent, problematic wild crocs were caught near Cairns and transported to the Gulf of Carpentaria to the 'naughty corner' they found their way back, covering a thousand kms around the Tip in a few months to the same spot in Cairns.

Cape York