Captain Billy Landing to ChilI Beach

Today we set off back down the Southern Bypass Route and called in quickly to the Bramwell Juction Roadhouse to fuel up.  Had a quick chat with one if our fellow campers from last night, who gave us a track condition report for the Frenchmans track.  We weren't sure whether to tackle this on our own, but were up for the challenge after speaking to John.  The whole track was very rutted and ranged between sand, mud, rocks and gravel. It was a testing track and full of little surprises to test your 4WD, very slow going, but alot of fun.  

First crossing was of the Wenlock River, all good.  The next crossing was of the Pascoe River.  This river normally flows pretty strongly and water up around 700mm, so we went to check out the crossing, fitted the water bra and made our way across.  A very steep and rutted downhill entry into the river, then across the river with water up over the bonnet, the exit was up and over a large log and up a very steep and rutted hill. We made it with no dramas, and were well on our way to completing another well known tricky 4WD track.

Chili Beach

Around 3pm we arrive at Chili Beach, located within the Iron Range National Park.  As it turned out, there were so people in our prebooked campsite so after speaking with the ranger, he lead us to the tour operators area which we could use all for ourselves! There were no tour operators booked in today so we had this whole huge area to ourselves, nice grassy area for our tent, nestled behind the trees to block us from the wind blowing up from the beach, our own private toilets and private beach access!  Couldn't have had it any better, so thank you to the ranger, you are awesome!!

Chili Beach is beautiful, beach lined with coconut palms, coconuts scattered on the ground, beautiful blue/green water.  Lovely place and would definitely come back again.

Chili Beach

Our camp at Chili Beach, dinner cooking away on the fire