Crocodylus 14/8/2013

Well it certainly was an interesting night’s sleep. Being open to the elements in the middle of the rainforest is a noisy affair. There were critters of all sorts digging around the forest floor, not to mention wild pigs! What made the night really interesting were the intermittent ‘ gunshots’ that we kept hearing, we figured out in the morning that it was coconuts falling off the trees. We were awake really early so got up and walked the 7kmround trip to the beach. 

We treated ourselves to breakfast at the café and headed out to Cairns to get the new prop shaft fitted to the Land Rover. It turns out that the aerial for the UHF radio didn’t need replacing – the radio itself is buggered, so we had to stop off at Autobahn to buy a new one – can’t head off into the never- never without a UHF. As I didn’t want to sit at a mechanics shop for hours, Iain dropped me off in Cairns central to do some shopping. We found a likely spot and I jumped out – it was only when I had walked about 50m that I realised he had dropped me off in the middle of the pubs and strip clubs! Needless to say my feet grew wings and I didn’t stop walking until I found shops.

The car didn’t take as long as we thought so Iain came and picked me up and we headed to the X-Ray place for my cortisone injection – this one didn’t hurt nearly as much as he used a local first. He was very pleased with himself when I said it was not nearly as painful as the first one I had. With my hand numb we headed off to pick up a few more things we had forgotten or realised would be very useful to have. It was while we were parked outside Bunnings that Iain discovered one of the seals on the transfer case was leaking. It was a nerve wracking drive back to Cape Trib with frequent stopping to check how bad the leak was. Iain was not amused as this meant we had to take it back to the mechanic in the morning to be fixed – losing another half day of our planned itinery. Funny, one of the only National Parks we booked to be sure we got in and this has messed up the plans – oh well car needs to right before we go.