Hello Everyone! It’s always this time of year that sees us with very itchy feet – just wanting to be done with mangoes, avocados, backpackers and all things farm related!!! We are in a bit of a lull at Blue Sky at the moment while we wait for our avocados to be ready so we can start picking them, which means Matt and I have had some time at home together to start planning our camping holiday in July – so many places, so many options!
Anyway – with Easter coming up – I thought I’d better get my act together and tell you about Elim Beach – it is an amazing camping spot and you might just want to head there these holidays!
After a couple of nights camping at the Lions Den Hotel Campground and exploring Cooktown in July last year, we headed off to Elim Beach. The drive took us two hours (75 mintutes from Cooktown) and the road was very muddy due to the rain we had received at night over the last few days. We had no trouble following the GPS out of Hope Vale and finding the campground at Elim Beach. The road was a unsealed from Hope Vale to Elim and a little rough, but Peter Prado and Black Betty handled it no worries!
The road in to Elim Beach – it was a beautiful drive
The sand dunes were beautiful! It was almost like heading to another planet!
Very filthy car and camper!
As we drove in to the campground we passed a couple of cars coming out and when we arrived we were stoked to find we had the pick of the campsites – check out our pole position spot (plus random stray dog!).
It was raining when we arrived, but by the time we had sorted out our camping fees with Eddie who is the Aboriginal Elder who owns the campground, the rain had stopped and we set up camp relatively dry. We spent three nights at Elim but could have easily have stayed much longer! We had such a beautiful spot right on the beach with amazing views out to Cape Bedford, lots of shade, a little fresh water spring creek for the kids to splash in and where we hooked up our shower so we could have lovely hot water showers. There are toilets, cold showers and drinking water at the campground but we are very spoilt with our HotTap hot water system. The only down side was that we still had to be vigilant about crocodiles. Eddie had said that it was very rare to have crocs in the water around the campground but we didn’t take any chances. So unfortunately there was no swimming, but when the tide went out (and it goes out a loooooooong way) there were plenty of little pools for the kids to splash about it and explore.
I’ll let the photos show you how great a time we had.
Fealy Family campsite Elim Beach July 2015
Yep – pretty top spot to relax!
Nice spot to do some reading – Jack finished off his second Harry Potter book here.
Kipp, Lexi and Toby playing in the little spring fed creek beside our campsite
Our shower tent with the trusty Joolca HotTap set up by the little creek
Beautiful spot for some fishing
This was a bit of a cheat fishing shot – Tobes found this shark washed up on the sand!
There are only a few beachfront campsites so I think you have to be lucky to jag one, but there are plenty of other lovely spots around the campground. As many of you know, we always try to be close to fresh water so we can drop the pump in and draw up to the HotTap for never-ending hot showers, well this spot was almost made for us! There are all these little springs running down the sand to the sea, all we had to do was dig a little hole (no bigger then a bucket) and drop the hose in. The pump had an endless supply of clean fresh water, run through the HotTap and viola! Endless hot showers, on the beach, watching the sun set, it doesn’t get any better! Eddie doesn’t take bookings so it is just first in, best dressed. The beachfront sites are quite close together so you do have neighbours, but it wasn’t super busy when we were there and we didn’t feel crowded. We met a couple of other nice families so the kids had lots of playmates. One of their favourites things was to go yabbying and play in the mud when the tide went out – yuck!
Yabbying with all the campground kids
Toby and his friend playing in the mud!
Aaaargh! Thank god for the HotTap shower!
My favourite thing was to give for a walk each day when the tide went out. We loved checking out all the sea cucumbers and star fish in the pools.
Off for a walk
And a splash in the pools!
Sea Cucumbers
Star fish!
Sand dollars
I love this shot of Jack!
We got some cracker sunsets at Elim Beach too and even managed a pretty awesome batch of scones in the camp oven – they were sooooooo good!
Scones cooking in the camp oven.
Pretty darn good even if we do say so ourselves!
Camp Fealy at Sunset
Pretty magic sunset shot
Matt got talking to Eddie (the campground owner) one morning while he sat outside his house making a spear over the fire. Eddie was always happy to chat and talk about the Aboriginal history of the area. He recommended that we take a drive along the beach to check out the coloured sands, as well as tackle the four wheel drive track at the back of the campground to see the ‘rubbish’ beach, so that’s what we did. It was an awesome few hours out!
Off for some 4wd fun!
Fealy Family four wheel driving!
This climb was the steepest ascent we have ever done – it was scary!
Looking back down – the photos don’t show how steep it was!
The kids and I walked down as I was too scared to have all of us in the car!
The huge sea turtle shell we found on the ‘rubbish’ beach among sooooo much debri that the ocean had washed up
Look at all the rubbish – aaargh!
The beautiful coloured sands – definitely worth exploring
Driving back to camp along the beach after a fun day out.
Elim beach is a beautiful spot and very affordable camping for the whole family. This is the link for the Elim Beach Facebook Page if you want to check out some other great photos from people who have camped there and this blog post from Travel NQ is a pretty good one too.
Another spot to add to the list 🙂
So now where should we head for two weeks in July this year? Any ideas for us??
Love The Fealy Family xoxo
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