It’s 9 am in the morning, we have a full tank of gas, it’s sunny and I’m wearing sunglasses. Time for a road trip.

The plan is to drive up to a camp site called The Lions Den about 30k South of Cooktown, spend the next day in Cooktown and the surrounding area, another night at The Lions Den and then travel back down then next day. We took the inland route as we heard the coastal track was fairly rough around Cape Tribulation and, even though I would love some 4 wheel drive off road driving, I guess breaking down up there would not be good.

The drive up was amazing, it was 400k or thereabouts and some of the scenery was amazing. Huge long roads flanked by scrub forest, stunning mountain lookouts revealing vistas again of vast scrub forest and the occasional road kill serving up delicacies to the local eagle population.

I drove to start with initially covering familiar territory out through the tablelands and then into the scub. It was a good drive with hardly any traffic on the roads. Before I realised I’d hit Lakelands, about 300k of the journey covered. Time for a change of driver.

On arrival at The Lions Den we headed for the bar to check in and what a sight to greet my eyes. The walls and ceiling were covered by signatures, comments and musings of people who had previously passed through. On one side of the bar were notes keeping alive the bush bank tradition. People would write their name on money which is then pinned up behind the bar so they had some money for food, beer and a bed on their return. Now it seems to be more a tradition with a myriad of currencies replacing the native currency.

Having checked in we made our way to the Safari Lodge number 2, a wooden and canvas 8 berth tree house complete with balcony. Luxury, rain forest style. We settled in with a glass of wine and then headed for the bar to get something to eat. Unfortunately vegetarian was not one of the chef’s specialities however the veggie pizza with added jalapeños was good.

As the night grew on a core of travellers were left at the bar. Not your normal backpackers but seasoned 4 wheeled drive off readers heading either up the Cape or returning from it. Now that is serious travelling, the stories were good and I for one had a good night.

Next morning we had breakfast at the bar, mine comprising of egg and beans on toast and a long black coffee. The breakfast was ok but the coffee was very good. Then it was time for Cooktown.