Lucas and I had been discussing the possibility of going for a long ride somewhere in Australia since the beginning of the year but by the time we actually were both able to commit to a time it was almost the middle of the year. Too cold to go to Victoria as we had been contemplating. It was now winter and Far North Queensland was calling. It was a long trip up and back, a bit bover 4000 kms and while I enjoyed being on the road again, saw some nice scenery and rode some nice roads this particular moto adventure did not go quite according to plan.
Day 1 Southport to Gayndah 464 KMS
Lucas fanged his way up to the Gold Coast from Sydney via inland roads with one overnight camping stop at Ebor on the way up. We set off on the long road to the deep north the next day taking inland roads through the Scenic Rim and then the Somerset Region stopping at Blackbutt for a pie and continued along the A3 to Gayndah in the Burnett region. While the inland highways are not particularly exciting there are some nice bits here with sweeping bends and big sky vistas. It had been a longish day, around 460 kilometeres by the time we reached the ‘Big Orange’ on the outskirts of Gayndah and we decided we would call it a day. Although we had brought camping gear we decided given the logistics of finding a place to camp and organising food that staying at a pub would be easier all round and found a room at the Grand Hotel. It is a nice old building with a verandah on the 2nd floor and a turret on the roof with reasonably comfortable rooms and from memory was reasonably cheap. Eating options were a bit limited in town but we did find a place serving Asian food and that is what we had.
Grand Hotel in Gayndah. Nice old building, parking out the back, cheapish rooms. All good.
Day 2 Gayndah ~ Duaringa 406 KMS
We loaded the bikes and headed off the next morning not entirely sure of where we would end up. Bad weather was on its way and the plan was simply to get as far north as we could before it hit. So we continued along the A3 stopping for some coffee and a bite to eat at Eidsvold, a quick photo at Three Moon Creek Silo Art near Monto and then on to Biloela where we had a bit of a run around to find somewhere open to have lunch. Lucas chose a takeawy place and I rode up the road the Rise Bakehouse Cafea for a slightly healthier alternative. I finished earlier and decided to head off before Lucas in an effort to outrun the bad weather which was now looming ahead in the direction we were heading. About 30 ks out of Biloela I got pulled over by the Highway Patrol and booked for speeding. It was a fair cop, I guess. I was doing 36 kph over the speed limit but the massive fine and the loss of 4 points rankled a bit. Like all motorcyclists I don’t always observe speed limits but I am not especially brazen about it.
Lucas was not far behind me when I got pulled over so we regrouped and rode at a much more sedate pace towards the Capricorn Highway (A5) hoping that the sky would not unleash on us. Because of the weather we had decided to stay in the pub at Duaringa which was oddly tucked away off the main road and took a bit of time to find. Nothing special but it was reasonably cheap once again and it did have some nice indigenous style murals inside. We ate in the pub and chatted to some locals and travellers including a couple of other bikers.
Day 3 Duaringa to Proserpine 518 kms
There was a lot of rain overnight and it was still raining when we got up but it soon eased and we were on the way again. Initially we took the A5 west then turned onto the Fitzroy Development Road and headed north once more through the vast emptiness of central Queensland. It was not particularly interesting. We had been debating staying on inland roads to Charters Towers but ended up taking a radical change of direction once we reached the Peak Downs Highway (Rte 70) and headed towards the coast. The topography and vegetation also changed dramatically from flat dry brown to undulating forested green. Nice descent down Eaton’s Ridge and through the cane fields and mountains around Marion. We had planned to free camp at “The Leap” pub north of Mackay but it was still light so we decided to push on and get further along the A1 and rode to Proserpine, a nice town with some lovely old pubs including the art deco style Prince of Wales where we took a room. I draw the short straw and got to sleep in the magnificent giant four poster bed. We were definitely in FNQ … sugar mills billowing smoke, Bougainvillea and Cordylines.
Day 4 Proserpine to Cardwell 470 KMS
After loading the bikes we decided to have a look at Airlie Beach. Lucas had never been and it was over 40 years since I had been there. Not surprisingly it had changed a lot in the intervening years and not really for the better. Although beautifully situated it has succumbed to wealthy sea-changers and looks and feels a lot like Byron or Noosa. The rich have built their houses at the top and on the sides of the ridge of hills that runs along and overlooks the crenulated shore line. I guess they will be safe from rising sea-levels and maybe even tidal surges. Perhaps not so much from the cyclones that are said to be increasing in both ferocity and frequency in the region. We didn’t linger long and took a pleasant road through the canefields were soon back on the A1 heading north.
The A1 or Bruce Highway has a perhaps deserved reputation of being a crap road. It gets hammered almost annually by heavy rains and sometimes floods which damage the road which means it is almost always undergoing repairs in some bits while in other sections there are roadworks associated with highway upgrades. Large sections of it remain two-lane and it carries a lot of slow moving traffic particularly heavy transport not to mention snail-like convoys of grey nomads in caravans and campervans. There are overtaking lanes, but realistically not enough and to some extent this encourages risk taking behaviour even in normally cautious people such as myself. You certainly have to be patient which is not necessarily easy when you are on a motorbike. You definitely have to grasp the opportunities presented by overtaking lanes and try not to think too much about fines and points and hope there are no Highway Patrols coming the other way to get clear of the line of slow moving vehicles in front and on occassions thread the needle to squeeze past that last semi-trailer before the lane ends. You also have to deal with that peculiar phenomomen whereby vehicles that had hitherto been moving at 20 kph under the speed limit suddenly accelerate when they come to an overtaking lane so you have to gun it to get past them before they inevitably start driving under the speed limit again. You also have dickheads that simply refuse to move to the left lane so you more or less have to zig-zag through the overtaking lane and also keep an eye on the rearview to make sure there are no utes coming at you from behind and be ready to get out of their way. All in all, you have to keep your wits about you. On this trip, I undertook, what in restrospect, were some pretty sketchy overtakes.
Some of the coastal towns have by-passes so you can, if you wish, avoid the congestion that accompanies the angle parking that is generally found in these centres. Not all of the towns have by-passes. Home Hill does, but its twin, Ayr does not. If you are not in a hurry however some of these towns are worth visiting. One stop I would recommend if you are up this way the Prawn Shop in Ayr where you can get very good Prawn Rolls and Scallop Pies for a very reasonable price.
Despite the traffic and the roadworks I kind of don’t mind this bit of the A1. Notwithstanding overtaking lanes or the lack there of, the riding, is not particularly exciting. It is however quite scenic and almost overwhelmingly lush and green. In some sections you get more distant views across cane fields on flood plains to the peaks and distant ranges of the Great Divide and others as you go further north there are rainforest clad hills on either side of the road. Climbing over the hill at Hinchinbrook there are some nice views across to the island although on this occassion I did not stop at the lookout.
As is often the case we spent much of the day riding separately and while my recollection is a bit hazy I suspect Lucas went exploring on his own for a while and I arrived in Cardwell much earlier. There is an enterprising family that operate a coffee truck in the Cardwell Rest Area just as you come into town and I stopped there and enjoyed a cappachino while taking in the magnificent view across the channel to Hinchinbrook Island. I later learned that a young German backpackerhad been robbed at gunpoint at the same location the day before. Took me a while to find the accomodation we had organised which was basic verging on shabby and not exactly cheap but there was Bottlo across the courtyard and a rusty wrought iron outdoor setting in the gravel at the bottom of the steps where we knocked back a couple of beers. Cardwell has remained surprisingly undeveloped compared to nearby places such as Mission Beach. It is a pretty enough place, built as it is right on the shore, but for some reason it has been by-passed by the sea~ changers but perhaps that is a good thing. There are a couple of good, I mean really good, fish and chips in town. We ate at Terry and Mamiko’s and it was excellent. There is a nice foreshore development and jetty that is pleasant to stroll around but the signs warning of the presence of crocodiles possibly explain why Cardewll is perhaps not a favoured place for swimming and hence explains the lack of tourists and tourist infrastructure.
Day 5 Cardwell to Gordonvale 198 KMS
We continued up the A1 for a bit and then turned off at Silkwood onto the Canecutters Way which pleasantly winds it way into the hinterland though cane fields and small settlements. We stopped to Mena Creek to have a look at Paronella Park, an old Spainish inspired ruin which is probably best described as a folly. It is definetly a folly to pay just under $60.00 to go inside the grounds so we instead walked down slippery path to the pond or lake at the base of the waterfalls and caught a glimpse of the old building. At this point we Lucas and I went separate ways. He headed up the Palmerston Highway and the Tablelands and I headed towards Innisfail and then took the A1 to Gordornvale stopping to get some lunch at the bakery at Babinda which I ate at the Boulders. A nice place which I have been to a couple of times before. I checked out the free camp there for future reference. I continued into Gordornvale and found a chemist. I needed to get some sunburn cream … my nose had been getting extremely burnt. I then rode to my friend Anita’s place just outside of town where I had organised for us to stay that night. It is conveniently located just off one of the twistiest bits of tarmac in Australia, the Gilles Highway which I was planning to ride the next day.
I went to High School with Anita. Several years ago we reconnected via FB and I went to visit and stayed with her at her house in Gordornvale and a bit later at the Croydon Base Hospital where she works as a Remote Area Nurse when I was travelling around Ausralia in 2021. On that same trip, many thousands of kilometers later, I was in Adelaide and sent out a feeler on FB to another old friend from school, Peter who I had not seen for many many years and we were fortunately able to catch up over dinner. I told Pete that I had been in touch with Anita and that he should contact her which he eventually did. To cut a long story short they are in a relationship. It is a long distance relationship but they do visit each other fairly frequently in their respective places and go travelling together. A nice squaring of the circle.
Anyway, Pete was visiting Anita so I spent the afternoon sipping beer and catching up with them both until Lucas came back from what sounded like an interesting ride over the tablelands and back down the Gilles to join us. We went to the nearby Mountain View Hotel just up the Gilles a bit at Little Mulgrave and had a nice meal together.
Day 6 Tablelands Loop Gordornvale to Clifton Beach 297 kms
Lucas and I went separate ways during this day although we caught up the following evening in the evening at yet another friend’s house at Clifton Beach just north of Cairns. Lucas had quite an ambitious overnight ride planned back over the tablelands, down to the coast via the Rex Range and then onto the Daintree to the Bloomfield Track to Cooktown and back to Cairns. With the exception of the Bloomfield Track I had ridden these roads before and I was feeling a bit tired so I choose to do something different. I had a nice ride up the Gilles without much in the way of traffic. When I got to the top and looked out onto rolling green hills of the tablelands it dawned on me that I was in my ancestoral homelands and that it would probably be remiss of me not to get in touch with my relatives so when I got to Yungaburra I gave my cousin who has recently moved back to Atherton after many years living in Malanda a call and see about dropping in to visit him at his new house which I had not yet seen.. When I called he was not home but instead on his morning hike in the surrounding hills but he would be back shortly. So I rode into Atherton and made a point of checking out my Grandmother’s old house to see how the once prize winning garden was faring and on my cousins place which is not far from the old Chinese Joss House which if you are up that way is worth a visit. Atherton was home to a very large Chinese community during the Gold Rush Days who worked market gardens in the district and in addition to the very old corrugated iron temple there is also a very interesting museum. Anyway, I went to visit my cousin and chatted for a bit then we decided to go the old folks home where his mother, my Aunty, lives and say hello to her. I am very familar with this particular old people’s home. It is the same one my Grandmother and indeed my own Mother lived in for a while. My Aunt is fairly elderly now and has moved from her self-contained unit up to a smaller room in the main complex. She seemed pretty on the ball and was able to inform me as to various going ons within the greater family.
With my filial obligations concluded I hit the road once again. I took the Herberton Range Road and then headed towards Milla Milla stopping briefly at the Gentle Annie Lookout to take a snap before doing the Falls Circuit going past Wolley Road where the old family farm was once located and onto Ellanjaa and Zillie Falls which feature prominently in my family history with stories such as my mother falling off a horse and breaking her arm on the way to school one day. I had never ridden the falls circuit before but it is quite a pleasant jount through rolling green pastured hills. This area was once covered in dense rainforest which unfortunately was removed by farmers establishing dairy farms including my family. Quite wanton environmental vandalism given that the dairy industry has been virtually non-existant since the 80s. I decided to take the Palmertson Highway back down to the coast. I could have ridden across the tablelands and descened via the Kuranda Road but I had done that a few times now and while it is quite a good road and has some nice bends there is a lot of traffic and unless you like utes and semis up your clacker the whole way it which I was not really in the mood for. The last few times I have been up that way the traffic was excacerbated by roadworks on the bridge at Kuranda and the descent to the coastal plains was a slow moving convoy. So I took the Palmerston which while nowhere near as twisty as other range roads does have some nice views near the bottom looking back onto Bartle Frere. I by-passed Innisfail and then took the A1 north to Cairns and then the northern by-pass to Clifton Beach. There has been a lot of suburban development over the last few years from Gordornvale and beyond most of it taking place in the narrow strip between the coastal ranges and the coast and as a result there is a lot of traffic and a lot of traffic lights. It was a bit of a slog. In retrospect it may have been better to take my chances with the tail gating utes on the Kuranda Road. Anyway I arrived in Clifton Beach at the house of my friends’ in the late afternoon and had a very pleasant time catching up with them. I have known this couple since my days in Japan and coincidentally bumped into them in Al Ain in the north of the UAE when I was on a work trip and had a nice time hanging out with them for a couple of days many many years ago and I also stayed with them on my Big Trip around Australia in 2021. So it was very nice to see them. They are very nice people.
I had a lay day the next day . It was raining and I learned that the Cook Highway which was what I was planning to ride had lots of roadworks so I decided to give that the flick and just hang out, drink tea and chat. Had a nice brunch at a locally famous bakery run by some Japanese people. There are lots of Japanese people living in the Cairns area and many of them seemed to work in the hospitality industry. Lucas came back from his adventurous overnighter to Cooktown and we all went out to dinner and reminisced about the old days and mutal friends.
The next day Lucas and I parted ways again. Given I was in Cairn’s I thought I should probably make an effort to catch up with my Neice and had a short ride to her place not far from the centre of Cairns via Yorkey’s Beach while Lucas went back up the tablelands with the intention of starting to head south after what was a fairly full on couple of days riding. I had planned to stay at my Neice’s house for one night and then start heading back myself and rendevous with Lucas somewhere along the way. I rang him that evening to see how he was and discuss the trip back and he dropped the bomb that would be a fairly academic exercise at this point as he was in waiting room at Atherton Hospital’s ER as he had come off his bike on a slippery causeway on the Kennedy Development Road and landed on his knee. He had been unable to get his bike upright due to slippery causeway and his buggered knee and waited until someone came along to get the bike back up then rode 40 kms side saddle to a gas station where he arranged to leave his bike and get a lift with a good Samaritan to the hospital. He had been already in the waiting room for a number of hours by the time I called and although he had been triaged and x-rayed was still waiting to see the doctor. When eventually he did get to see the doctor they said there was not much they could do for him as his knee was almost badly smashed up and more or less washed their hands of him and basically refusing to put him in a hospital bed or for that matter let him lie down in a gurney and he had to sit in the waiting room all night. I organised to borrow my Neice’s car and drive up to Atherton and collect him and the gear that he had with him and then take him to Cairn’s Airport to catch a flight back to Sydney that he had organised the night before while in the ER waiting room. I left early the next morning and picked him up and got him onto the afternoon flight. That all went quite smoothly under the circumstances.
The whole experience though was more than a bummer and got me thinking how quickly things can turn to shit and made me question the wisdom of riding solo. Lucas and I have been riding together for years and have developed a system that accomodates our differing interests and more importantly the different speeds at which we ride. I like to plod along, make frequent stops and generally take my time . Getting booked for speeding earlier on this trip was a genuine aberation. Our usual approach is to ride at or own pace and ride separtely and meet up somewhere further down the road or at the end of the day which is what we had been doing on this trip. It has generally worked well but I have always had niggling worries about what would happen if something went wrong as it did on this occasion. To be honest, I have always thought given that Lucas is a much more confident and technically able rider than I that it would be me who would be the one in trouble.
After dropping Lucas at the airport I returned to my Neice’s house and spent the evening and part of the next morning sorting out the gear that he had not been able to take back with him on the plane in preparation for it to be shipped at some point in the future with my Niece’s assitance back to Sydney. Irinica
As I say, I was unsettled by the whole experience to the extent that I was a bit ambivalent about riding at all but the reality was I was 1000s of kilometers from I had to get home. I had had some vague intentions of checking out a couple of places on the return journey. These included Charters Towers and Ravenswood in the north and Eugella near Mackay but in the end because I was feeling so unsettled I decided to take the most direct route and blast my way back home via the M1. I kind of wish I had acted on these vague intentions in retrospect but at the time I was, as I say, feeling quite unsettled.
Day 9 Cairns to Townsville 358 Kilometers
So on the first day of the return journey I rode from Cairns to Townsville. I had been in touch with my Guru in motorcycle matters, Warren, and organised to crash at his place. It was a pretty uneventful and not particularly memorable highway ride. I made a few stops. Firstly at the Hinchinbrook Lookout south of Cardwell a place I had ridden past a number of times before including on the way up this time. Stretched my legs a bit and followed a track to spot that had a nice across the island. I then road to Innisfail. I had heard about an Italian delicatessian, Oleveri’s that was supposed to be very good and was not disappointed by the pannini and coffee. Australian country towns have a reputation of being waspish bastions but in reality they are quite culturally diverse. This is particularly true of north Queesnland that not only has a large indigenous population but also many people of European extraction, particularly Italians who came to cut cane and later run the sugar farms. There was a group of elderly gents sitting at the table drinking coffee and chatting on the footpath outside Oleveri’s in manner just as you would find in the old country. I also noticed a pair of elderly women clearly of Chinese extraction catching up on a bench nearby talking in accents broader than Paul Hogan. Pleasantly and surprisingly cosmopolitan which reflects the real history of Australia which is one of migration. There are some nice old buildings in town and wanted to take some photos but the angle of the sun and the cars parked in the main street meant I did not get any good shots. I then decided to ride out to Etty Beach to have a quick look as I had heard that it was quite a pretty place and that it was a good place to spot Cassowary’s. It was indeed pretty but unfortuately no big birds. On the way back I saw a sign pointing to Mourilyan Harbour and made a quick detour but there was nothing much to see apart from a sugar handling facility. I backtracked to the highway and headed for Townsville. I had only been to Townsville once before usually by-passing it on my previous trips north. My friend Warren has got himself very comfortably set up in an apartment one street back from the Strand in Townsville’s North ward. We had a stroll along the foreshore just before sunset and I was very favourably impressed. Not sure I would want to live there myself but it is not quite the wasteland that I thought it would be. Very good to catch up with warren and to see how well he is now doing
Following a pleasant bite to eat and coffee down on the Strand I hit the highway once again and slabbed it 387 kms down the M1 to Mackay. Brief stop in Home Hill to guzzle down some isotonic drinks and petrol but that was all. Stayed in an overpriced motel that turned out to be quite noisy on account of being on the on the main road out of Mackay. Because there was not really any choice ate at KFC which was as bad as I remembered. I did kind of wonder how the young Asian guy with makeup and pearl earings feared in a place like Mackay.
Didn’t feel like having KFC for breakfast so hopped straight onto the bike and did the infamously flat and boring stretch of the A1 between Mackay and Sarina where I stopped for coffee and a salad roll at the bakery and got a snap of the 2nd “Big Thing” of the trip, the Big Canetoad. I continued on down the A1 to Mt Larcomb and took the road into Gladstone which passes and aluminium refinery. Gladstone on the whole is quite industrial and the city centre is non-descript. I found a place on Booking.Com which was not exactly cheap but compared to everywhere else in town was bargin. I was keen to stretch my legs and and had a bit of a walk around but there was not much of note. I walked to a supermarket to get some breakfast supplies and later stumbled on a pop up food van selling Thai food. I had a delicious Pad Thai . The ladies who ran it were stoked to hear me thank them and tell them the food was delicious in their own language.and decided to stay in Gladstone which I had never been to before. Did not make much of an impression on me. It is quite an industrial place and the road in takes you past a Rio Tinto aluminium smelter. Again, another overpriced motel which if there had been two of us would have been okay but , stopped briefly at Marlborough