The Old Telegraph Track

On the ferry back from Thursday Island now, so thought I'd take the opportunity to fill you in on our last few days.

Thursday island was really good by the way. We did a bus tour, which was interesting to hear what happened with the war etc. I nearly convinced Az (or Ferris as he was called today..he wanted a different name for a day) to buy me some pearls..but couldn't find anything that we liked..bugger.

But back to the Track..we had driven from Moreton Telegraph Station to the petrol station (the name has totally escaped me at the moment), where diesel was about $2/litre...the guy filling our car up was telling us that 12 cars had been claimed in one of the creek crossings this season already...I'm pretty sure we were only a few weeks into the season! If that wasn't enough to make you start re-thinking your decision to go along the track, you went to pay and found tables with photos on them..sure there was some nice falls and scenic ones, but there were also ones of cars upside down or on their sides...Skye was nervous, asking Swifty if he was sure he was prepared to wreck his car. I was pretty excited, probably because I had no real concept of what we were getting ourselves into!!! There was a group of 13 (I think) cars, a crew called the miser club. They had to get a car and the fuel to get up to the cape for under $3000. Understandably they were well and truly prepared to trash their vehicles. They were all getting their snatch straps and car bras ready, we did the same.

So it was time to start... About 2kms in we came to our first water crossing. We were being cautious and walked it. Easy! We were thinking we've got this nailed...until the next one, Palm Creek. Holy sheet!!!!!! As we got there we saw a Hilux going down..and went so close to tipping over that the contents of the back of the ute started falling out..and he's only gone about 1m into the track!! Needless to say we were all looking at each other, eyes bulging, wondering what we were getting ourselves into. Swifty went first and absolutely nailed it! Az was next - I had opted to take video of the cars going down, across and up. After talking to the boys we decided it was more nerve racking for me, outside the car, than it was for them....and boy was my heart in my mouth!!! Az got stuck on the way up, as it was so boggy and had to winch himself out. It was a huge relief to have the first big one over and safely out.

The next few crossings and bit of road was fine - some beautiful scenery and the roads were in relatively good condition. There were definitely some interesting moments though and with Az still getting used to the feel of the car and working out how far he could push it. We had tagged on to a group of oldies - great crew!!! And I'm so glad we did. We were driving through a track that had a big step up from one side to the other. Az was on the high side and I was down in the rained out rut. It got steeper and steeper...until Az felt the bum of the car slide and I found myself about 10cm from the ground. He'd put the car on it's side, rested against the bank. I had to lean all the way over his side to stop from falling out my window. All the boys got on the side leaning against the bank and pushed it up while Az slowly drove on..then they moved to the driver side to give extra weight to get him out of the rut!! I had to stand on my door and climb up the seats to get out. I so wish I could show you photos!! Thank goodness for the convoy we were in, seriously great bunch of people.

We finally came to the infamous gunshot creek. Most of the photos we had seen on the tables of overturned cars were taken here...yep, as you can imagine the heart started beating pretty fast.
In the end it was pretty straight forward..Swifty got the trailer stuck, only cause the turn to get around into the creek was so tight. We watched the oldies come through and we decided to set up camp here...partly cause the Cowboys (we nicknamed the big group of cars due to some loud members), so we could see them go through...we knew they'd take on some of the harder declines. The next morning as we were getting ready to pack up, we heard some cars. We dropped everything and ran down the track to find them all arriving. Great entertainment!! A few of them gave the harder ones a go and some got through...if it wasn't so early I reckon the bous would have cracked a coldie and sat and watched. We decided we didn't want to get stuck behind them, so did a super fast pack up and got going...