Tropical Greenery

So after a week of faffing about and two aborted attempts to depart Cairns I managed to make it out of the city and north towards the Port Douglas/Daintree region. Cooktown was my target as the turning point up the coast but at Mossman a local said the road was in shocking 4WD only condition after lots of rain and traffic. 65km from Cape Tribulation to Cooktown is gravel and the alternative is a few hundred kilometers around the mountains. I’m not too confident about the strengh of my bike on the really rough stuff, so I turned my pony around and went into the Atherton tablelands instead to begin my journey into the outback.

It was a reasonble climb into the hills, didn’t feel as bad as some of the earlier climbs I’ve done. Maybe it was just easier but I’d like to think it’s because I’m getting fitter. Still not sure about that, I don’t feel and stronger or fitter but the distances I cover are reasonable and my average speed is increasing.

I can’t figure what happened to my pictures from Port Douglas and Mossman so there is nothing to show but there were some pretty ones. Anyway the tableland is a fertile plateau with lots of agriculture and plenty rainfall which I experienced first hand on my way to Atherton. Being the last town of any decent size before I get to Mount Isa near the border with the Northern Territories I stocked up with food and more water bottles. I’m carrying 6 complete days of food and 9 litres of water now.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 27th, 2006 at 1:53 pm by Ross and is filed under Australia, Queensland, Tablelands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.