The plan today was to head for Cooktown, the furtherest main town North on the Cape York Peninsula.

We had always had the intention of going to the absolute top of Australia but had heard many stories of the difficulties encountered by people travelling there, that we are not sure that the off road driving will be worth the repairs that it is sure to necessitate to the van which is definitely not a dedicated off-road van. 
We had the van booked in to get a new tyre this morning in Cairns so we packed up, kissed and hugged everyone goodbye and then headed off. We had some waiting to do at the Tyrepower store as they freed up the only bay that would fit the caravan in. Finally, it was fixed and we were on our way. About 1km up the road we could hear this incessant noise which seemed to be coming from the car tyre. We pulled over, checked the tyre and discovered a bolt through the rubber. We absolutely couldn’t believe it.

I made a quick phone call back to Tyrepower to make sure they kept the bay open for us and we drove straight back there for a repair. While we were waiting we discovered all sorts of rubbish lying on the driveway and road out the front including bolts, pieces of wire, and bits of metal. Ray showed the Manager and he suggested it was the factory over the road. We then pointed out bits of rubbish including tyre valves and suggested that perhaps these were not actually from over the road, but perhaps theirs. He was non committal. Our guess is that we picked up the bolt in the car tyre on our way out after getting the caravan tyre fixed. Tyrepower received some very important and specific feedback on its website when we finally hit the road (2.5 hours later than anticipated).
Any other day the waiting wouldn’t have been so maddening but today we had a very exciting stop to make. A colleague from school, Anne, was holidaying in Palm Cove with her husband and four friends. She follows this blog and so she knew that we were in the area. A couple of text messages and a phone call later and we had a plan to meet for coffee at their holiday house. We were looking forward to seeing another familiar face and catching up with news from home. 
Their house overlooks the nudist beach and had magnificent views of the beach and ocean (and the nudists as a bonus!) We enjoyed a coffee, Tim Tam and a good catch up, envying their stunning house and big beautiful expansive couch! (Definitely something we really miss). 
All too soon we had to leave and continue up the coast with our tiny house behind us. 
We decided to bypass Cape Tribulation and the Daintree on the way up and to explore it on our way back. (This wasn’t actually a conscious decision but rather the result of someone not looking at the map and the distances properly). 
We stopped at Mount Carbine at a quiet park scoring a carport type site with a definite lean on it and spent the evening planning our trip further North.