Port Douglas to Cooktown and return
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
