LOOPING OZ
HOME | LOOPING OZ	Mackay to Cairns By Al

It’s a maintenance day! Both bikes needed a bit of a touch up to get them running smoothly again, and the website needed some attention to get that first bit on and Mackay just happened to be the place do just that. The maintenance required to both bikes was to clean up the points and check/reset gaps for the points, plugs and the rockers. Followed by a rough as guts tune up of the carbies to stop all that popping and banging that tends to happen when the bikes start to run out of tune. I tested the red bike with a 20km hike around the block on my own through the back blocks of Mackay’s cane fields. Fabulous! This was followed up with a few loops of Mackay on the bikes and on foot. One thing about Mackay that sticks out is the number of Computer and Hi-Fi shops in the town. At night the place is quite dead and some of the take away tucker is a bit dodgy, but loved the trip across the causeway at night on foot the most. From Mackay we headed out west to Eungella National Park. The trip out there was fantastic through the cane fields. The ride up the range to the national park is must do ride even though it is a bit rough in spots. Meredith will probably be able to expand a bit on this. I also took note of the cars for sale on the road ranging from about $100 to about $500. No, didn’t buy one, got a bloody good bike. The ride out there was a bit slow with lots of road work and 80km zones. There were a few 100km zones that we have put on our wish list to achieve one day. The views of the valley whilst traveling up the range to Eungella are fabulous and make up for the cattle grids that cross the road at an angle and the sharp 20km bends that are as rough as guts. Nothing a Guzzi can’t handle. Chicken feed actually. At Eungella we stopped at Sophies Coffee Shop. Interesting place! Be warned you may be asked to “take a seat and I will bring it to you”. We ended up camping at Fern Flat for a couple of nights and did quite a few of the walks in the national park. From Eungella we headed north to Townsville via wet soggy roads and creek crossings into Finch Hatten Gorge. We didn’t do much there and stayed about as long as a bogs worth at the drop dunny. From Finch Hatten Gorge we took some to die for back roads from Gargett to Calen via Mt Charlton. The roads out this way have some great scenery and curves even though there are some lengthy patches of gravel. At Calen we stopped for lunch at the Calen Hotel. Great place the Calen Hotel with great lunches and Bundy on tap. From Calen it was back to the drudgery of the busy highway north to Proserpine where we stayed the night. We took a trip to Airlie Beach in the evening whilst we were at Proserpine. That was enough! We did a bit of a detour into some car park through a “No Entry” sign and discovered a loading dock (set of shelters) full of backpackers being loaded into shuttle busses destined for the gas chambers. Seriously, it looked like something out of the old war movies I used to watch when I was a kid. When we got back to the caravan park later that evening we were entertained by some bands who were playing some fabulous older and newer music for some HOG mob. The music was pretty good and clear as. Unfortunately, it ended at midnight. The next day we left Proserpine and called into Bowen. Great place Bowen, hasn’t been destroyed yet by resorts and the like. It was refreshing to actually find somewhere along the coast that felt Australian. From Bowen we continued north putting up with the tirade of Nomads and their bloody caravans to Townsville. At Townsville we had had enough of the bumper to bumper traffic and crazy driving practices of some of the travelers with their big pumpin 4wds and oversized caravans trying to achieve sound barrier speeds on the highway so we took bush and headed out to Charters Towers. The ride out to charters towers was fabulous. A lot less traffic and only the road trains and a hand full of nomads to worry about. We didn’t actually make it to Charters Towers that night and stopped at a place called Bivouac Holiday Camp where we met Glen (the caretaker) and his six peacocks. Even though there is quite a bit of free camping around Charters Towers it’s actually quieter and you get your own personal space if you stay at caravan parks. Anyway Glen has a vision to make his caravan park really busy. Ah well! We left Bivouac Holiday Camp and tripped the 20kms into Charters Towers. I liked Charters Towers in particular all the old Queenslanders and older buildings in the town centre. We even got to see the Rebels head quarters whilst doing the historic tour of town! From Charters Towers we headed north about 40kms to a road side campsite on the river that is free. We pulled in and viewed a stream of caravans from one end of the horizon to the other. We setup camp next to some people who were a bit younger than us (not by much). They wandered over glad to meet someone closer to their age. They said when they pulled in they had wondered if they were in a geriatric park? Yep, haven’t seen a lot of younger folk traveling, obviously staying home saving up for when they turn 65 plus. The road north from Charters Towers to Mt Garnet has some fantastic scenery of mountain ranges and the odd defunct volcano. The terrain is very rugged and at the time was very dry. It also reminds me very much of Western Australia with sparse vegetation, and tough looking trees. The road north is also notorious for ore carrying road trains that weigh about 120+ tones, are 55m in length, take about 3 to 4km to reach operating speed, take about 1 to 2km to stop and travel quickly down the centre of the road. All that said the road trains are not the ones to watch. Here the rules are quite simple - get off the road. The ones to watch are those nomads in their pumpin 4wds towing their oversized caravans. At last, the great Aussie outback! We had decided to head to Undara National Park to check out the lava flows and get some exercise. But before Undara NP we needed to get an oil change (at Greenvale) and visit Australia’s smallest pub at the Oasis Road House. We had no choice about the pub because the red V700 decided it had had enough and stopped about a kilometer or two before we got there. Obviously it was Bundy o’clock and time for a rest to let the bike cool down. We had met some Harley riders at Greenvale (or should I say, they found us) when doing our oil change. Harley riders are interesting? “Look there’s a yellow bike just like mine!” Not quite - one bike is a 40 year old Guzzi and rides well the other a 3 month old Harley with hard (corrected to - firm) suspension and rear wheel that slips on gravel. Surprise, surprise! I was asked “what do you do when you break down?” simple “I fix it”. From Undara we headed for Atherton. The scenery changes quite dramatically and we were treated to some fantastic views of mountain ranges, and a you beaut wind farm pumpin out green electricity. You could tell the place was windy because all the trees were laying on their side. But the cows didn’t mind as they were munching away under the swoosh swoosh of the wind mill above. Luckily the towers are painted to blend into the surrounds so you can’t notice them much. Another good thing about Atherton is the absolutely fabulous roads and some must do rides down to Cairns and other places along the coast. After a good night sleep at a caravan park in Atherton we headed for Cairns via Yungaburra. The descent from the cooler plateau to the warmer coast down the windy road was fantastic with views to die for. Until once again we were on the coast road and bumper to bumper traffic. In Cairns we did some catching up on eating out, drinking coffee, and doing some typical tourist things like the rail train trip to Kuranda and air train trip back to Cairns. And, of course more maintenance on the bikes including repacking of the red V700’s rear wheel bearings and replacement of a seal that failed somewhere between Charters Towers and Mt Garnet.

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Meredith’s Version Travel Notes