If you could go up Cape York anytime of the year .................

Hi Willie, we left Mission Bch on May 2nd and went along Bloomfield Tk to arr. Cooktown on 6th. Went via BattlecampRd and forded the upper Normanby on the 9th. As it happened the East coast of Qld had the driest April for 50 years but for us there was still plenty to splash thru. If anyone had tried these dates in 06 it wold have been a no go due to cyclones Larry then Monica. I checked the BoM site and noted that it basically stopped raining on the Cape in the first week of April, so I had a month for the water levels to fall. But I was going in May regardless, so some will say I just got lucky.
But I also checked the previous 10 wet seasons to see when it usually finished and 06 was not normal. Nobody knows when the rains will stop in 09 but with a caveat emptor you are usually safe to go by late May. Also have just watched the Gall Boys Far NQ Adventure. They went late in the dry and Palm Ck was a dustbowl and Cockatoo a trickle.
Most of our trip is in PLACES - check out the pix .Cheers, Warrie

Early May.
During the last week of May numbers on the Cape go off the scale. It only gets dustier, crowded at the camp sites & harder to book in to accomodation, besides the deeper water makes the trip a bit more challenging ;-)
Cheers Craig..............

I also totally agree with early may, also if post wet season road works have been done by then the corrugations will be no problem.

Was up there early May - June ex Cairns in 2007, the only corrugations we found were in Lakefield Nat Pk and they were 500mm from trough to crest I swear.

Cheers Colin.

G'day Willie...I guess I'm on the outer here but I love the Cape in July and August. I grew up in that metropolitan centre of Mossman and loved that time of year as a and still love it. I always plan my trips up north to visit family at this time as it also gets me out of the depths of Queanbeyan's winter and the fishing up north is simply superb as well.

Willie,
We went in July and had a great trip, did the whole OTL and had no problems at all, we didn't think there was too much traffic, take your time and enjoy your trip.

cheers

So far the vote is going towards early May .

Thanks everyone ,

Willie .

Cannot remember the exact date but from memory the sign at Nolans Brook stated first xing this year was late May.
we went in July and some people were still having problems.I was suprised how little water in the creeks in some cases less than we experienced in sept 99 however the roads were so much smoother than late in the season .
cheers
Howard

We are doing a 12 month trip around Australia next year & i plan on being in Cairns by April in preparation for a trip to the Cape in early May.

The weather will obviously play a big part in these plans. If it's a late wet we may need to skip that part of our trip as i want to get across the top in June/July/August

Willie,

In 2006 after Cyclone Larry the NP's didn't open till a week before we left 1 July arriving in Cairns 12 July. We had our fingers crossed.

Trip Report

Don't get me wrong here Willie, we had a great trip when we did the Cape.

We were the third vehicle to the tip in 96 arrived there on the 25th May. But we missed so much.

When we arrived in Cairns we learned that the Archer was 2m above the causeway and the Wenlock was 5m deep at the crossing. We were lucky we had a bit of time to play with but if we had listened to the National Parks and tourist info in Cairns we would have gone somewhere else.

The OTL was not even worth considering, everything was full to overflowing. We crossed the Wenlock on a barge made up of 44 gal drums and were the only group camped at Moreton Stn. We were lucky to get into Twin Falls and probably even luckier to get out. Every time we set out along the OTL the first creek crossing we came to was absolutely impassable.

When we got to the top we camped at Seisa because it was the only place we could get into, everything else was still under water.

It was beautiful, we had the place to ourselves and it was sooooo peaceful but as I said earlier there are a lot of places up there that I am yet to see.

Oh 96 was the wettest wet in 43 years and most of it fell in March. In 95 the first vehicles arrived at the tip on ANZAC Day.

May was great, no corrugations, just holes you could lose the car in, but if the wet is late you could be disappointed.

Duncs

Last year we did it in September. Way too hot.

Thank you all for your input . I guess it will now be early June as my son just dropped the bombshell that he will be getting married on May 9 .

Willie .