Bloomfield and the Lion’s Den Hotel

We leave nice and early at 8.30. We noticed we need about 75 minutes including some time for breakfast to pack up the tent and the rest of the paraphernalia to be ready to move on. It might be a 1 minute tent to set up, but that doesn’t include tying on the fly, pegging etc let alone getting out the chairs, table & cooking gear etc, and all that stuff has to go back in the car. Unfortunately with the tent being the heaviest item, it is one of the last things to get out of the car and the first thing that needs to go in when packing up. Pity we couldn’t get the roof racks we had hoped to get back in Cairns, oh well, that’s life!

Bloomfield Waterfalls has a swimming hole at the base

We move on going through some 5 creek crossings and onto a lovely waterfall at Bloomfield. Pity we couldn't stay longer and have a swim and a picnic there but the group has an agenda and we can’t be selfish and just do what we want to do. So it is off to a quick shop at an Aboriginal art shop where I bought a nice little necklace that would be great for a daughter to remember Australia by as she moves to Canada for a year or two.

Lunch was at the Lion’s Den Hotel. The Lion’s Den is a pub with a difference and a lot of character. There is a fibreglass lion out the front to welcome visitors and a mini shop and photos and such of some ‘horror’ stories of vehicles that have come unstuck in some weird and wonderful ways on their trip up the Cape.  You’ll even find some undies signed and otherwise of past patrons hanging up like some sort of banner across the roof inside. Take your time to look around. Some of our team bought lunch, whilst others made their lunch out of supplies in their vehicles.

We stopped at Black Mountain which turns out that this mountain range is actually made up of granite rocks that are all tumbled on top of each other as though God was playing with gravel (large gravel of course) and poured them into piles. It seems as though there is no dirt in between the rocks. It is quite unusual.