Monday 14th June - Five Mile Bay to Cape Ranges National Park

The wind picked up in the night and the tent’s flysheet started banging about which keep waking us.  Tonight we’ll try without the flysheet as it’s been warm the last few days, so condensation shouldn’t be a problem and it doesn’t look like rain.

80km on corrugated 4WD tracks bought us to the Cape Range National Park which extends along the top end of the peninsula.  Turn offs lead to the myriad of bays that line this stretch of coast, but we continued to Yardie Creek which was to be our first proper river crossing. SPOT

Arriving a couple of hours after high tide didn’t say much for our timing, but at least it was lunch time so we made sandwiches and waited for the tide to drop.  First across was a Nissan Patrol (it’s always good to let somebody else test the waters) which had no difficulties, so we followed suit, airing down the tyres and proceeding in low second.

Safely across we were rewarded with the beautiful Yardie Creek Gorge, which cuts through the Cape Ranges.  The mix of red gorge, clear dark water and the sea and beach in the distance was something special.

What wasn’t so special was the smell of burning and sparks emanating from the Land Rover’s battery box as we made to leave after walking the gorge path.  After pulling over and cutting the electrics, we quickly discovered the cause which was probably also responsible for the earlier handbrake cable issues.  The secondary battery we had fitted was slightly taller than our Optimas, so the battery support bracket was slightly raised as a result.  When driving over corrugations it must have moved slightly and come into intermittent contact with the positive terminal on our electrical cut off switches.  Not good.  We pulled out the batteries to reposition the support bracket and ensure sufficient clearance from the live terminals.  Hopefully this will be the end of our electrical issues which are all the more annoying as we had unwittingly caused them in the first place when we fitted the new battery.

We’re sharing a national park’s campsite near to a couple of recommended snorkelling beaches with a camper van, a Scottish guy (named Brian) and his Tasmanian girlfriend, and a group of French travellers in a van and estate car (who won’t talk to us).  The stars are out again, and a warm breeze has us in shorts and T-shirts this evening (and lathered with deet after an unfortunate sand fly incident at Cape Peron we’re not willing to repeat in a hurry). SPOT