Cooktown. We have selected a campground and head straight there. Bad news – we have turned up at the start of one of the biggest tourist weekends in the Cooktown year – the anniversary of James Cook’s landing in 1770. And there is literally ‘no room at the Inn’.

So we make some desperate phone calls and, fortunately, find an unpowered site in a caravan park that turns out to be just perfect – very lucky.

From Undara we head to our most northerly destination on this trip – Cooktown. On the way we hit a significant milestone … literally – 250,000 Kilometeres on the Landcruiser odometer.

Kalkani (aboriginal meaning place of no water) is a (hopefully) extinct volcano in the Undara area. We climb to the summit and walk around the complete rim for spectacular views of the surrounding area.

Undara Volcanic is a National Park in North Queensland. It is notable for its lava tubes and gem fossicking.  The park contains the remains of the Earth’s  longest flow of lava originating from a single volcanic crater. The lava flow is about 160 Kms long.

The area 164 volcanoes, vents and cones. The lava tubes are regarded amongst the largest and longest on the planet. The word Undara is aboriginal in origin and means a long way.

The volcanic activity that formed the tubes occurred approximately 189,000 years ago and the volcano Undara expelled massive amounts of lava onto the surrounding Atherton Tableland. In total it was estimated that over 23 billion cubic metres of lava was released covering an area of 55 Km².

The next major stop is The Undara Lava Tubes which is a three day trek. First stop is Hughenden to take advantage of a caravan wash at the caravan park, then two free camps at Fletcher Creek and Undara Junction.

Porcupine Gorge National Park is 1,200 Kms northwest of Brisbane and 60 Kms north of Hughenden. We camp here for 2 nights and take advantage of the beautiful walks including a tough one down into the gorge itself.

Winton’s final attraction is the Dinosaur Stampede, also known as Lark Quarry, after one of the volunteers that helped excavate the original site. The site is considered to be the site of the world’s only known record of a dinosaur stampede with fossilised footprints are interpreted as a predator dinosaur stalking and causing a stampede of around 150 two-legged dinosaurs. The Lark Quarry site is about 110 km (68 miles) south west of Winton.

Winton has another claim to fame – The Australian Age Of Dinosaurs Museum. This has to be our more favourite attractions as we have traveled the country.

The Australian Age of Dinosaurs is a museum focused on Australia’s evolutionary history, in particular the discovery, conservation, and research of Australia’s dinosaurs. It is a working museum – an education resource, research facility and tourist attraction. It features:• World’s largest collection of Australian dinosaur fossils• Most productive fossil preparation laboratory in the Southern Hemisphere• Work on real, 95 million-year-old dinosaur bone fossils found in the Winton area• Spectacular views from the top of a giant mesa with striking rocky outcrops and canyons; walking trails; animal and bird life; it’s a photographer’s paradise!

(I stole the above description from Tripadvisor but it covers it beautifully !)

“Waltzing Matilda” is Australia’s best-known bush ballad and has been described as the country’s “unofficial national anthem”. The title was Australian slang for travelling on foot (waltzing) with one’s belongings in a “matilda” (swag) slung over one’s back. The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker (swagman),  making a drink of billy tea at a bush camp and capturing a stray jumbuck (sheep) to eat. When the jumbuck’s owner, a squatter (wealthy landowner) and three mounted policemen pursue the swagman for theft, he declares “You’ll never take me alive!” and commits suicide by drowning himself in a nearby billabong (watering hole), after which his ghost haunts the site.

The original lyrics were written in 1895 by Australian poet Banjo Patterson and were first published as sheet music in 1903. Extensive folklore surrounds the song and the process of its creation, to the extent that it has its own museum, the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, where Paterson wrote the lyrics.

Banjo Patterson is also an award winning poet having penned such classics as The Man From Snowy River, Clancy Of The Overflow, A Bush Christening, plus many more.

The North Gregory Hotel holds an enactment of the first rendition of Waltzing Matilda plus readings of some of Banjo Patterson’s poems each evening at 5:30.