Almost immediately after leaving camp we passed the turnoff for the Jim Jim Road (my friend Paula remembers it well, she met her husband-to-be on a bus tour there).
Then it was passed the Paper Bark caravan park (closed) and the Mary River Wilderness Retreat (not open to camping bicyclists) to lunch at the Corroboree Tavern. Chris O’B had beaten us and spent the night their fixing his bike. While there Brian found something to fix on his own bike. The Booroloola Road had been rough on man and machine!
Christine had a pastie shaped like a crocodile (we had earlier crossed the Mary River that a few days later a young man and woman trying to escape the police after a robbery had jumped into but never came out of (presumed eaten).
A check of the map and then a left turn a few miles up the road on to the Marrakai Track to short cut to Batchelor and the Litchfield National Park. The road was ok, mostly graded in the last few days. While having an afternoon snack about 40 km along a ute pulled up and the driver and his off-sider checked that we were OK. We assured them that all was well and the driver indicated that he used to own Limmen River Station before it was bought to become the national park where we met Dianna of the hunt (the ranger). They then encouraged us to continue for another 20 kms and to camp on the banks of the Adelaide River (the cattle station on the western side of which he now owns) at the Marrakai crossing.
The Marrakai Crossing was a delightful, undeveloped rocky ford over the Mary River with deep pools on each side but only a trickle of clear water running over it and into a short cascade of pools on the downstream side.
We dutifully lay (one by one) in the cascade pools to wash and relax before returning to camp on the high ground above the river for the night.
(We found out later from Litchfield National Park ranger Darius that he had seen a 4.5 salt water crocodile in the pool upstream of where we were lolling in the flowing water – I still am uncomfortable with that revelation).
About 8 pm as we settled in to bed after dinner a spot light lit up our camp. It was pig hunters checking out where campers were so that we wouldn’t get shot by accident. A little later on there was some squealing where we assume the hunters had run a piglet to ground.