Far North Queensland — Day 10

Guyra to Brisbane

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14 May 2019

Master Map

Pterodactyl was planning on riding most of the way home and then pausing for the night in order to avoid the worst of the evening traffic in Sydney. For me it was an easy ride home, although vague threats of rain hovered. I was going to be a day or two earlier than planned. GrahamT had said he might come and meet me for a night and the ride home, but faced with possible rain and the cold of New England he found other things to do.

So I rugged up and set off for home. Big, warm gloves means no photos, not that there is a lot to photograph. At some point I stopped and put on full wets as rain threatened, but it came to nothing. I had breakfast at Our Place at Tenterfield, a seriously agreeable café and wine bar. I also had a long conversation with the rider of an ST1300 who did not think the CB was a restored 1970s model. Like my new friend from Eidsvold, he seemed more than a little envious of the ride I was finishing.

At Tenterfield I left the main road and made my way up the Mount Lindsay Road to Legume. There are sections of dirt, but they're relatively short and in good condition. I intended to turn right at Legume and head home via Woodenbong which made international news earlier this year when a local resident wanted to add to Australia's bizarre collection of 'big things' by bestowing — yes, you guessed it — a big wooden bong on the place. Locals were less than impressed.

Anyway, as so often happens when I'm riding alone, I changed my mind at Legume and rode home over the Head. There's a great climb on the southern side and a steep descent with spectacular views on the other.

The view north from the Head Road

There's nothing much worth reporting after that. I was home by mid afternoon. Pterodactyl, of course, decided to keep going home (as I would have) and got caught in post-accident traffic to the point that I was beginning to worry slightly about his silence.

It was yet another excellent ride with the ancient bird. Thanks, mate. I'm keen to do again and take some time to poke around more of FNQ.

For the statistically minded, the CB covered 5,601 kms and used 294 litres of fuel at an average consumption of 5.12 litres/100 kms. I just know someone will check those numbers and they won't compute. Please don't tell me. I know. It's near enough and has to do with how I record the data.

The K-tel chap won't be back. Don't wait. There's no more.

Far North Queensland — Day 9

Taroom to Guyra

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13 May 2019

Master Map

My memory of riding from northern NSW to Taroom in 2016 was that it was not all that interesting. Flat with less than fascinating scenery. As it turned out, I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. The ride from Goondiwindi to Inverell to Guyra via Graman and Cherry Tree Hill was enjoyable, particularly the final leg to Guyra. We were very close to 'roo time' when we arrived at the Guyra Hotel.

Our last experience of that hostelry was in 2014. We arrived late in the day and I was frozen. The room was OK, the bar warm and the beer cold, but the menu was uninspiring. I remember we asked the barman for a bottle of red wine. All conversation in the bar ceased. All eyes turned towards us as we made our selection from three proffered bottles and took a long time to resume.

This time, although the licensee had to send us down the road for a feed, it was a much friendlier place to which I'd happily return.

For some reason I took very few photos during the day.

Pausing for hydration at Moonie

The bikes unpacked and under cover in the yard at the Guyra Hotel. Given this is said to be one of the coldest places on the New England Plateau and frosts are the norm, we were glad of the cover.

Far North Queensland — Day 8

Nebo to Taroom

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12 May 2019

Master Map

Another agreeably dry night meant that packing up was easy and we were soon on the road south. Although it was sunny and cool, there was a south-easterly breeze that was stiff enough to make riding at the speed limit a bit uncomfortable. It made me wonder again whether the investment in a fly screen would be worth it.

Breakfast and fuel after an hour and a half's ride perked us up a bit and we set sail for Baralba, 243 kms down the road and boasting two petrol stations where we could refuel for the final leg. There was no other opportunity until Banana, a further 50 kms on and likely out of range.

It was warm when we pulled into Baralba. I was glad to get off the bike and take my jacket off for a moment. Of course neither service station was open.

We pulled up opposite one of them and reasonably close to the local hotel. We wandered into the bar to see whether there was anywhere closer for fuel than Banana.

'No', was the answer amidst much hilarity. They suggested a slab (two dozen stubbies or cans of beer) might, if we were very lucky, entice the owner of one of the local stations to help us.

I'd had a tough morning punching into the wind and would cheerfully have pitched my tent and spent the rest of the afternoon undertaking an extensive study of the bar, its inhabitants and offerings. Pterodactyl, on the other hand, was a man on a mission. Before I knew it, I was on the phone to the owner of the service station who agreed to come up the street and give us some fuel.

He was a very decent bloke. We got a little over $40 worth between us and he flat out refused to keep the change from $50. He said he was happy to come out for stranded passers-by like us, but deeply irritated when locals tried it on.

Shortly before we got to Banana we were stopped by the police to let a large oversize truck carrying mining equipment go past. Shortly afterwards it happened again.

We planned to stop for a cup of tea in Banana, but when we arrived yet another convoy of monster trucks approached and we had to stop again.

Both these trucks pulled into the service station along with the escorts and, while we waited, we realised we'd be cutting it fine reaching Taroom before skippy's evening exercise regime got under way.

It was a seriously good fun ride and we overnighted comfortably in the Taroom Hotel.

Far North Queensland — Day 7

Ayr to Nebo

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11 May 2019

Master Map

The rain not only stopped during the night, but a drying breeze developed. It's always a relief to be able to pack a dry tent rather than either waiting for it to dry or packing it wet.

There were a couple of roads we hoped to ride on the way south which meant more time on the main road than we would normally be prepared to endure. It's not like the US Interstate by any conceivable stretch of the imagination, but there is traffic and there are trucks and there's buffeting and the riding is simply not as pleasant. Our evening strategizing had led to a compromise: we'd ride the first of the planned roads before turning inland for a faster run through central and southern Queensland and into New South Wales.

There followed an interesting enough 250 kms along the coast road. We stopped for breakfast in a surprisingly posh café in Bowen—a more interesting town than I remember from my one and only previous visit.

Steel road and rail bridge over the Burdekin River just south of Ayr

I took no more photos until after we left the Bruce Highway at Mt Ossa and had a great ride along a series of pretty, quiet and enjoyable back roads to the plain below Eungella which was on my list of roads to ride on the way home. It runs up the hill in this picture and is, as promised, very scenic.

However, many of the curves are very tight and there are substantial grids on the road which make careful navigation important. It was worth the ride to the top of the hill for the view and a brief run along the range, but the road was not nearly as good as those we rode near Cairns.

Coming back down the Eungella road

In the next picture, you can see a sign warning of a tight right-hand corner. As I came down into it, I could see the road for a considerable distance down the hill and realised it would be safe to overtake this line of traffic. The bloke in the grey utility was very unhappy about it and sat angrily on our tails until we stopped for petrol. Why I don't know. He had plenty of opportunities to pass.

Our plan was to head to a mining town called Nebo for the night. At Eungella we realised we could hit another of the recommended stretches of road on the way. From the bottom of the hill we headed south towards Sarina before taking the Sarina-Marlborough Road through a short but glorious series of bends. They were well worth the slight detour. The rest of the trip to Nebo was also pretty. In places the bush encroached close to the edge of the road and made me nervous as kangaroo time was fast approaching.

In Nebo we found a slightly run-down but agreeable enough caravan park to pitch our tents. It promised to be cold overnight, much to the disgust of the owner. He told me he got cold when the temperature fell below 40ºC!

Far North Queensland — Day 6

Remember K-Tel? All those wonderful ads? That great slogan, "But wait, there's more". Steak knives, all sorts of other crap you had no use for would be chucked in with the original piece of crap, all for one low price that you could even pay in easy instalments. Or was that just an Australian thing?

Anyway, the Cormanus Chronicles are a bit like K-tel. Just when you think the end is nigh and you can get up to pour a drink or make a cup of tea, the cry goes up, "But, wait, there's more!"

Port Douglas to Ayr

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10 May 2019

Master Map

We turned for home, enjoying a morning ride south along the coast road to the third great motorcycle road of the trip: the Kennedy Highway from Cairns to Kuranda.

The Kennedy Highway

South on the coast road

I had a milestone coming up, and I was imagining pulling over to get the shots, but as it turned out, I was on the Kuranda Road with corners everywhere and nothing resembling a shoulder to come to rest on. I managed a poor shot with lanyard cam.

Views over the plain north of Cairns

Then it was along the beautiful Atherton Tablelands to Atherton for breakfast, Malanda again for fuel and down off the range to Innisfail. That was the 4th great road; a really good ride down the range.

For some reason I took few photos of what turned out to be a long afternoon on the main highway. There was an okay view of Hinchinbrook Island as we passed through Cardwell.

By the time we reached Ayr, it was spitting rain and we just managed to pitch our tents before it set in. It was light, mercifully, and stopped during the night.

Far North Queensland — Day 5

Port Douglas to Cooktown and return

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9 May 2019

Master Map

We spent the night in a cabin in one of the caravan parks in Port Douglas. It was not that we were too lazy to set up our tents again; rather, time was a bit of an issue and we wanted to make Cooktown the northernmost point of our trip. To meet our various deadlines, that required a reasonably early start to cover what we expected would be more than 600 kilometres up and back.

Another glorious morning greeted us as we rode north towards Mossman and another exquisite 10 km stretch of road to take us back up the range.

The Mossman Mt Molloy Road — click for link to interactive map

Passing through sugar cane country before the climb

At the top of the range

Breakfast and fuel stop at Mt Carbine Roadhouse

I think I expected the road along Cape York to be like this …

Bits of it were, but some of it was like this …

There were plenty of hills and undulations and corners to keep a rider interested. It was a more enjoyable ride to Cooktown than I expected and a very pretty place when we got there.

Cooktown is so-called because it was the place James Cook, the British explorer who first charted the east coast of Australia and paved the way for the English colonisation, beached his ship, the Endeavour, for repairs after he holed it on part of the Great Barrier Reef. It's a small town, but, as I said, pretty and with a good harbour. It would be an agreeable place to spend some time exploring on another trip.

The Cooktown pub

The harbour

I've no idea where this propeller came from, but it wasn't the Endeavour

The end of the road for this trip. At the mouth of the Endeavour River overlooking the Coral Sea. From here we were on the way home

A view south leaving Cooktown

The next brief stop was at Black Mountain, Kalkajaka in the local language. These two extraordinary mounds of large black rocks stand in stark contrast to the verdant, green-covered hills around them.

View north from the James Earl Lookout

View south from Bob's Lookout

Another day, another milestone

Our plan was to refuel at Mt Molloy before riding down the hill again, along the coast road and then up the range on the Kennedy Highway to Kuranda where we would spend the night. All went well until we got to the bottom of the hill and Pterodactyl realised we would be arriving after dark. So we stopped at another caravan park near Port Douglas, pitched our tents and settled in for the night.

Views from the Mossman Mt Molloy Road

Scenic camp site near Port Douglas

Far North Queensland — Day 4

Mt Surprise to Port Douglas

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8 May 2019

Master Map

Far North Queensland is where Pterodactyl comes from — his 'place of origin' in the favoured idiom at the time of writing — and this day was about some visits to important places in his early life. It would also mark the first day we had descended from the plateau of the Great Dividing Range since climbing it shortly after leaving Brisbane.

A termite mound, one of thousands beside the road in this country

A food stop in Mt Garnet

These clay tennis-court-coloured roads appear all over this part of Queensland

One of the things I really like about FNQ is that the mountains, although not remotely tall by world standards, rise steeply from the sea. There is often a very short plain between the edge of the water and the foothills. The next pictures show these mountains coming into view as we made our way east. They also show that there is considerably greater rainfall nearer the coast providing lovely rainforest. The ancient Daintree rain forest, north of Cairns and Port Douglas is a World Heritage area.

We stopped for fuel and a drink in Malanda before making our way to the Gillies Range Road for the descent into Cairns. I took no photos as I was too busy concentrating on the road—a series of corners beautifully made for motorcyclists. They were worth the effort, and with almost none of the switchbacks that I find the CB1100 doesn't much like. That may be code for I don't much like them. Who knows?

This section of the road is around 19 kilometres long and amongst the best I've ridden. Motorcycle heaven.

The Gillies Range Road — clicking on the map will take you to an interactive view

After a couple of stops in Cairns, we made our way north along the lovely coast road. It's 27 kilometres from Ellis Beach to Oak Beach, and the road runs along the narrow strip of flat-ish land between the Coral Sea and the Great Dividing Range. Our destination was the tourist town of Port Douglas. It's hot, it's tropical and it provides easy access to the Great Barrier Reef, but the beach is not nearly so lovely as more southern beaches. And it's ridiculously hot in the summer. For a young, itinerant person, it's a place of endless opportunity.

A view from the coast road between Cairns and Port Douglas