Lion's Den Hotel - Rossville

 2 – 3 June 2021

We’d wanted to stay at the famous Lion’s Den hotel for a while, especially Mick who had stopped there for a beer a few times on the way to or from the Cape on fishing trips, and we finally decided the time was right. The drive from Cooktown was only about 30km so we arrived well before lunch. Check-in is at the hotel bar, and although you can pre-book a powered site, unpowered is just a case of “pay your money and find a spot”.

We chose a spot that would give us some afternoon shade, but would only allow a couple of hours of solar. It’s a very relaxing spot and not too crowded when we arrived, but that did change as the afternoon wore on. The attraction here, apart from the pub, is the lovely creek adjacent to the camping area. If it had been hotter, we would have been tempted to have a swim. There are a couple of spots where you could set up right by the creek, but it is a long way from the amenities.

We spent a quiet afternoon looking around and relaxing. There were a few resident goannas patrolling about, most likely looking for a feed, as well as the usual birds and butterflies you find in the scrub. As the afternoon wore on, the campground started to fill up – and I mean fill up. By nightfall it was packed with camper trailers, caravans, roof-top tents, swags, tents and small motor homes. They were set up everywhere, even between the lodges where signs stated you couldn’t camp. There were lots down by the creek too. We were very glad we had arrived early to be able to choose a nice spot, but were eventually crowded in anyway.

We had decided on dinner at the pub and were a bit worried about their capacity to cater for so many people. We need not have been concerned – we went up early and had our pizza within about 15 minutes. Pizza and a beer on the verandah was a great way to end the day.

In the morning we were again surprised that so many of our fellow campers seemed in no hurry to get on the road. We usually see many early departures from places like that, but not this time. We left around 8:00am and headed back up the road to the Mulligan Highway. We could have gone south and along the Bloomfield Track, but decided against it this time.

We made it to Palmer River Roadhouse and topped up the fuel, then continued to Mount Molloy and stopped at Rifle Creek to make a cuppa. From there it was on to one of our favourites stops for lunch – Platypus Park, just out of Atherton. We continued on towards Ravenshoe and then to Innot Hot Springs – our destination for the night.