LOOPING OZ
HOME | LOOPING OZ	The Cape By Meredith

Day 21 After a few good days in Cairns we headed out to Wonga Beach to catch up with my sister and her family who had just come back down from The Cape, having touched the tip. But before leaving Cairns we popped in to catch up with long lost Uncle Bob and his wife Irene and had a lovely morning catching up on all the family gossip. Day 22 The first full day at Wonga Beach was a very lazy day we just caught up on domestic chores, a bit of bike maintenance and sleep! Day 23 By the following day we were both refreshed and Alan and I decided to go for a bit of a ride on the bikes without the gear. Quite a novelty as this was the first real opportunity we’d had for a naked ride (so to speak). We headed up to Cape Tribulation having a fantastic ride through beautiful Daintree rainforest and magnificent ocean views. On the way up it was a bit overcast and it was like riding through a darkened crypt, but on the way back the sun had come out and the sun light glinting and shining through the foliage made it feel like riding through a cathedral. Very beautiful and understandably a World Heritage area. Day 24 We left Wonga Beach the next morning and headed up towards The Cape following one of the famous Cairns bike roads from Cairns to Kuranda. The roads up or down from the coast to the highlands had proven to be a feast for the biker, and this one was a lovely little twisty tasty morsel. We spent the night at a free camping area on Rifle Creek at Mt Molloy, and for something different we decided to pop up to the pub for dinner. We had a lovely roast, good music thanks to the Walker Brother’s quintet, but best of all we bought some raffle tickets to support the local fire brigade and we won the mystery prize! It was a terrific little hamper with all sorts of goodies in it, but because we were on the bikes, we only took what we could use (Tim Tams, honey, tuna, stickers for the niece and nephew) and left the rest for the fire brigade to re-raffle. Day 25 We woke up to a foggy, drizzly sort of morning, packed up swiftly and headed up the road to Cooktown. Once we started moving down the range we left the clouds behind and had a clear day and a lovely road. However, the closer we got to Cooktown, the windier it became. Cooktown is an amazingly windy place. That night as we were lying in the tent there were a couple of times when I thought the tent might take off, even with us and all our gear weighing it down. Other than the wind, Cooktown is a nice historical town with lots of interesting buildings, monuments and museums. They have an old cannon on display at one point and the notice explains how in the late 1800s the town was concerned about the possibility of Russian invasion and requested resources from Brisbane, and they were furnished with the canon, a competent officer, two rifles and three canon balls! We also visited the James Cook museum which is quite fantastic and well worth the ride and the entry fee to see all that’s in there. There is another museum in town that is meant to be equally fascinating for showcasing the areas’ history, but we didn’t have time to visit that one because we were heading out the next morning. Day 26 The big adventure started the next day as we headed further up the cape. ‘Weipa or bust’ was our catch-cry as we headed into the unknown. The road through to Lakeland roadhouse is bitumen and was a retrace of our footsteps (tyre tracks?) from the day before. Once we left Lakeland the road promptly changed from bitumen to dirt. After quite some distance, another extended stretch of bitumen is encountered, and part way along this is the Split Rock National Park where you can get very hot and sweaty climbing up to the Aboriginal rock art galleries in your riding gear! While we were recovering from the climb to the galleries, we were congratulating ourselves on our passage from Lakeland. The road hadn’t been anywhere near as bad as we’d been led to believe, lots of smooth clay with an occasional section that was a bit challenging, but not too bad. “What a bunch of wimps the rest of them must be.” we big-noted ourselves. But as they say, pride comes before a fall, as we were to be reminded. We left Split Rock full of confidence, heading for Laura. The dirt road continued smoothly as had the roads before, but then we came to the dog leg to take us through the Laura River into the township. We’d been experiencing a few of the mad 4wdrivers that infest the road, so I was a bit reluctant to go to the right of the road so continued along the shoulder of the narrow road, only to find that I’d headed straight into a big pile of sand that set the bike fishtailing all over the place, and before I could do much about it the bike decided to lie down. Luckily Alan had seen how dodgy that section of road was, though he’d avoided the bit that I hadn’t, and was back to help me hoick the bike back up in no time flat. When I tried to get it into neutral to start it we found that the foot peg had been bent and the gear lever was stuck. So I limped into Laura in first and Alan located a huge metal pole that he used to bash the peg square again. After we left Laura, we were a lot more cautious and a bit more aware that the road might not be as smooth and easy as it had started. As we progressed along, the road got worse and worse and worse. The surface became less predictable all the time, and the 4wds became more frequent and madder. We finally made it through to Musgrave road house that night, completely pooped from the high level of concentration required to rattle over the corrugations, slip over the bulldust holes, and side step the 4wds going in both directions. Of course there were sensible drivers who drove at a modest pace suitable to the conditions and slowed down when overtaking or passing anyone, but there were the others too who seemed to think they were in a race and the bigger dust cloud they could pull behind them then the better 4wdriver they were. You had to spend nearly as much time checking your mirrors for loonies coming up from behind as you did watching the road and watching for the lunatics coming towards you! Day 27 The next day we were off fairly early and continued up north through the Bamboo Range. A good part of this road was bitumen, but it still took us over 50 minutes to do 40ks. The road had become appalling. It was like a corrugation and mad 4wdriver expo. The corrugations varied from nice little dimples to great big speed humps and dips. Not much variety in the 4wdrivers, they were pretty much all mad, unless they were a cautious local. The shaking and bouncing was so bad that I eventually had to stop and get out a triangular bandage and strap up my boobs so that I could keep both hands on the handle bars instead of using one arm to reduce the bouncing boob agony that I was in. At about this point Alan decided that the road was just getting ridiculous and it was probably not wise to continue. “If your boobs are sore, imagine how the bikes feel!” he said. So we decided that with the deteriorating road conditions and the deteriorating traffic conditions, it was just getting too dangerous to continue, so we’d head back. We turned around and headed back down the Bamboo Range to Musgrave. My boob brace made a big difference and even though we were still bouncing and jouncing along in first gear, I wasn’t in any pain. At Musgrave Alan did an oil change and then we continued down the road, battling the road and the cars to reach Laura that evening. One interesting thing we found was how different the road was on the other side. We encountered a lot more ruts and bulldust holes and sneaky sand drifts heading down than we had on the way up. That day there were a lot more 4wds as well, perhaps because it was a Monday. That night as we pulled into Laura Alan’s bike crunched to a halt with the front end doing some bad things, providing us with more confirmation that turning around had been a good idea. What I understood had happened was that some bolt that holds everything together had been stretched by all the bouncing and no longer fitted properly and that caused all sorts of related problems. A bit like my boobs, really. That road’s just not good for front ends of any type! Day 28 After a pleasant night at Laura we only had 70ks to get back to Lakeland and the bitumen. It still took more than an hour to do that stretch, but what a relief to get to Lakeland and know that the dirt was behind us! It was with great joy that I whipped off the boob brace and threw it back into the first aid kit. We were so pleased to be back on bitumen that we did one of our longest days to date and ended back in Cairns. Just being able to ride at some sort of speed and look up and see what was around was so liberating after three days of not being able to look at anything other than the road a few metres in front of the bike! That night we caught up with my sister and family again and had a fun night on the town. Day 29 The next day was an R&R day in Cairns. I did the washing and started de-dusting the panniers and bags whilst Alan went out to find whatever he needed to fix his front end and locate a place where we could clean the dust from the bikes. He came back some time later and said that he’d met a new mate who’d said, “No worries. Come over to my place. I’ll get you sorted.” So we did. Al’s new mate, Bols, was very helpful and hospitable and was full of good stories about biking in the area. He also told us about a friend who had been on the road heading up to the tip on her off road bike about the same time we were heading back down. We remembered passing her and exchanging a big wave. We eventually got the bikes cleaned and then Alan needed a giant crescent to open up the forks to replace the oil, but Bols didn’t have one of the right size, but he said, “No worries. I’ve got a mate who can help. Let’s go!” So we did. His friend is a bike mechanic who builds trikes, so he had everything. It turns out that this friend is the partner of the woman we’d waved to on our way out. It also turned out that she was at home, on the couch, with a broken arm. As things would have it, she’d had a bit of a spill further up the road and didn’t come out of it as well as I had. We had a bit of a chat and she agreed that the road had been terrible and said that it had got a lot worse from Bamboo Range with deep corrugations and deep sand holes. More confirmation that turning around had been wise. When we got back to Bol’s place Alan finished the oil change then we were invited to stay for tea. We had a great night with Bols and his wife, Maudie, who is also a keen motorcyclist. The only downer of the whole evening is that I can never again make a guilt free Harley joke because these generous hearted people both ride Harleys! Day 30 The next day was spent pottering around; getting the website sorted, the bikes finalized and the domestic chores out of the way. That night we had dinner with Uncle Bob and Irene and had another great time. We sure like Cairns – lots of lovely people up there. Day 31 That’s today. We’re just finishing off these stories and then we’ll be off towards the NT. It rained buckets last night so we’re hoping it won’t follow us inland. But we’ll let you know with the next update.

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Alan’s Version Travel Notes