Day 413 | Pascoe River crossing: although not the usual tourist campsite

24 km | zzOz total: 11,984 km

The Pascoe River Station track is a knockout although not the literal kind, it’s one of my favourite stretches of riding in the whole Cape York jaunt, even if it’s only about 50 km end to end.

Basically it’s Cape York lite, crossing similar territory as Frenchmans Track somewhat downstream except with little of the full body effort needed for getting through that 40 km or so of sand, here the sand is a few hundred metres max, there’s far less traffic on this set of ruts.

You have to cross the same two rivers: the Wenlock is crossed just above the Falls, the drop all of four feet, the crossing over a jagged limestone rock field that must have taken a high toll of 4WD tyres; then later the more impressive Pascoe River, but the crossing while swift has little of the trepidation of the waist deep crossing further down on Frenchmans. Maybe I’m just getting adjusted to Cape conditions, that the earlier crossing of the Pascoe was almost four weeks ago and I’ve managed a more realistic assessment of the dangers.

There’s a great campsite here, like many of the creeks and rivers, I’m just overlooking the crossing sitting up the bank, the sound of water racing downstream is well up the decibel scale, soothing.

The Wenlock flows past Moreton Tele Station then west to the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Pascoe past a whole lot of nothing, east, to the Pacific.

Somehow I’ve just crossed the Great Dividing Range again without really noticing.