When we were in Cooktown we asked around about the road conditions to Cape York and were met with mixed messages. It seemed we had lots of creeks to cross and the water level had dropped. In the end we decided, after our scare on the Bloomfield road, that we would give it a miss. However I was keen to go to Laura for three reasons: it was my niece Laura’s birthday the next day, I wanted to see if it had changed much over the years, and I had read about some Aboriginal Rock Art near there.

There were several spots to see the rock art but only one was self-guided; the other two cost $190 each per tour and that was well outside our budget unfortunately. I believe these paintings are 40,000 years old so it would have been amazing to see. We did go to Split Rock, just before Laura, and climbed up to see those that were around 15,000 years old.

As we climbed we caught up with a group who had an Aboriginal guide so we tagged along and listened to some good descriptions on what the pictures meant.

It was well and truly worth the drive and the climb. Fabulous! (I nearly didn’t take my phone to take photos as i didn’t think it would respectful but the Aboriginal guide said it was fine). I read that the rock art around Laura is listed by UNESCO as being among the top ten rock art sites in the world. We were so lucky to see it.

We continued along the road into Laura but it hadn’t changed, there was still nothing much there. Instead of camping there, we drove down to Lakeland Hotel where they allow free camping on the grass. We had a great lunch there and a nice overnight stay.

The following morning we took off south, stopping for lunch in Port Douglas with a plan to camp at Trinity Beach. The scenery was beautiful.