Isabella Falls, Cape York

Cooktown is as far north as we are travelling on Cape York.  While it would be an adventure to go all the way to the tip it would also be quite a journey.  A dusty one, requiring a 4WD that we’d have to hire along with camping gear.  Or pay for a tour, but finding a tour for a family of six is difficult and pricey.  We’ve heard the trip takes something like twenty hours.  That’s a long journey to get to the sign that says you are at the northernmost point on the Australian mainland.  So, it won’t be happening on this trip. At the visitor centre in Cooktown we asked about waterfalls in the area.  This far north you have to be careful of crocodiles, but there are some falls that it is safe to swim at.  About half an hour or so northwest of Cooktown are the Isabella Falls.  The creek runs right across the road.  There were no crocodile warning signs here and they’d told us at the visitor centre that we could swim here.  We decided to play it safe and stick close to the falls just in case. There was plenty of climbing to do and all the kids ventured onto the ledge at the top of the falls.  They stayed well back from the edge and didn’t freak mama out too much. JitterBug lost his second tooth, right before his eighth birthday!  The adult tooth from the first tooth he lost has already grown up into the empty spot.  Still can’t believe that both my boys have been over seven and a half before they lost their first tooth.  The dentist is happy, though, since it gives their jaws more time to grow which means more room for adult teeth.  Here’s hoping at least some of them won’t need braces.  But back to the waterfall… Does anything make a toddler happier than playing in water? They all had turns in the various cracks and crevices and mini waterfalls… This was just over the road and the water moved so swiftly, crossing the road and into the falls.  Much leaf racing and then shoe racing commenced. (Shoes were rescued before going over the edge!) We didn’t venture in here.  No crocodile warning sign at the road, but who knows how far up the creek you’d need to go before you see one.  We saw quite a few vehicles crossing this creek headed in both directions, some towing caravans. One happy kid after all that water play! Here’s one of those crocodile warning signs, this one at a different point on the road.  ‘Crocodiles inhabit this area – attacks may cause injury or death.’  Nice. And…a tattered American flag at the side of the road.  Not a current one, but one with only thirteen stars for the original colonies.  Weird and random.    We did try to see other waterfalls in the area and we were hoping to swim in some waterholes, but our plans were foiled by rain and closed roads and a lack of signage on really long dirt roads.  The kids didn’t mind and were happy to go to the pool instead.  Honestly they’d be happy to go from the pool at one caravan park straight to the pool at another one, but their terrible parents make them actually leave the park at times and see all the things there are to see in this country.  😉