An Australian lap attempt.....anti clockwise

[OnHellas]

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Maybe the windows need cleaning.

There was one type of Coral that call a Boulder Coral. It grows a 1-3cm per year and some of them were huge.
Probably 3 meters in diameter. They must be hundreds of years old.

Then there’s the Brain Coral, The Stag, er...I forget the others. But some are soft and some are hard.

So, in summary, not a Wow! day but still a great day out. We laughed, had fun and enjoyed ourselves.

[OnHellas]

Today is Saturday the 21st and we have bookings for the Kuranda Scenic Railway up to Kuranda and the Skyrail back down again.

We got to the very pretty station nice and early to collect our tickets, have a cup of tea and a wander around the Tat Shop, sorry, gift shop......one of life’s questions, my life anyway, is....

1. How many tons of tourist Tat is for sale at any one time in the world and
2. Does it all really get sold?

The irony of being told proudly by a shop assistant on Fitzroy Island that ‘we don’t have any plastic bags on the island at all’ whilst I was buying water in plastic bottles and two Ice Creams (Maxibon...mmm) in plastic packaging....... there I go again. I’m not moaning, honest. I just don’t always get it.

I digress, the engineering marvel of this railway is amazing. The views from the windows stunning, not so much the ones in the many tunnels and cuttings, but the others.
The sea in the distance, the rainforest, bridges, waterfalls. During the journey we were informed of what we were seeing or passing over, how things had been dug our using hand tools etc etc.
An enjoyable hour and a half or so.

Once we arrived in Kuranda the question I posed above re tourist Tat was again in my mind.
After a mooch about and a Kangaroo Burger with Chips it was time to head back down.

Not on the train but on the Skyrail. A cable car journey of about 35 minutes back down the mountain.
Now this was a Wow! The views of the rainforest canopy, colourful butterfly and views across to the coast.
There are a couple of point to get off on the way down, Barron Falls and somewhere else called Red something, I forget.
At the Red whatever stop there was a boardwalk through the forest. Lots of interesting facts about how the forest works and we sort of hoped to see but we’re glad not to see Spiders.

We are back in our cabin, a cup of tea and a slice of Raisin Toast.... happy after the day out but we have asked if the tourist thing is for us.
Sometimes the best things are the things that you just happen to see along the way, they are for us a lot of the time anyway.

One little thing from this morning, we used Uber to get to the station. The guy turned up in a Ute. A nice clean tidy Toyota Ute. Nice.

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[OnHellas]

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I was going to buy one of these but apparently they didn’t have my size!!

I don’t know what she means...

[OnHellas]

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[OnHellas]

That’s it for now. I should go out and give the bike a check over but sitting here drinking tea has more of an appeal.
I’ll do it tomorrow. We might need to replenish the teabag stocks too. We can’t be without tea.

Maybe we’ll go for the locally grown Daintree Tea.

I might go and put a couple of recently purchased stickers on my Panniers though. They seem a bit of a rare commodity here, stickers. No probs if you want fridge magnets, but stickers...few and far between. And those that there are are to big in the main......see, all that moaning and I’m buying the Tourist Tat along with the rest of them!

[OnHellas]

Time to head west. Time to head away from the populated east coast and in to the Outback.
Earlier in the trip we rode along the Inland Highway from Townsville so had had a taste of the long roads with next to nobody on them. A sight of Road Trains and the narrow ‘truck width’ tarmac ribbons with a dirt shoulder for the smaller vehicles to use.

Highway 1 leaves cairns and heads up the Kuranda Range. A nice twisty mountain road with a decent surface. Progress was fairly slow due to traffic and also because some Numpty had spilt diesel on the majority of the left hand corners.
Never mind, the views were stunning and we successfully kept away from the line of diesel on the road.
The route took us to Mareeba, a town we had ridden through in the way to Cooktown a week or so ago.
We had to retrace about 100 miles of the route that we had used to go north.
Our destination for the day was at Mount Surprise. We were booked in to a cabin at the Bedrock Village. Yes, Flintstones was the theme. We joined the Savannah Way about 40 miles before we stopped for the day.
The road would take us nearly all the way to Karumba, where we are now.
At Bedrock Village they serve a communal dinner in there outside dining room. The days offering was a tasty roast followed by sticky date pudding and ice cream.....a no brainer....
It was nice chatting to a few of our fellow diners but they soon fell in to the stories of Kangaroo Doom and Motorcycles.
On the other hand, it is nice that so many people remind us foreigners of the perils of riding at dawn/dusk/night. I just wish they’d hold back in the ‘I once heard of a chap that.....’ stories.
After a night listening to the chap in the adjoining cabin snoring like a Scania truck with a broken gearbox (yes, I did have earplugs in!!) we set of in to the sprawling metropolis that is Mount Surprise for a day out. We visited the historic railway station and it’s on site museum. A tin shed measuring about 10’ x 30’.
Interesting though.
The train that runs through here is a tourist train styled a bit like an Airflow Caravan. We didn’t see it though.
Next we went in to both of the petrol station shops in the hunt for Raisin Bread. Fail. It seems to be a rare commodity out here, we’re yet to find any yet.....still, at least there’s always something to look forward to...
Without Raisin Bread we had a look around the local Gem Stones emporium. Run by a couple of £10 Poms who’ve been out here for 50 years. They actually met on the ship from England. They obviously liked each other, they’ve been together ever since. I liked that.
He was in to Fossicking, oh er misses, looking for the Gem stones.
She then polished said stones and made jewellery.
That was the town explored and discovered.
Back for a spot of lunch and a round of golf then. The golf was free to residents of the village. So a hotly contested 18 hole competition under blazing skies followed. I will admit to wanting to win, but alas I came up short. Two holes in one helped Sarah win by a healthy margin of 3 and 1. (3 holes up with only 1 to play for you non golfing Adventure Riders).
Next time we see a Crazy Golf course I’ll try and even up the scores!!

Our next destination was Croydon. Very much different to the Croydon back home.
The ride along the Savannah Way was about 150 miles for the day. Not far and actually not much to see. After turning right out of Bedrock we rode to Croydon and turned right in to the campsite. Not exactly a challenging day navigation wise. But I find empty roads and big countryside fantastic.
There was plenty of roadkill along this stretch and I came fairly close to head butting a ‘Wedgy’, a Wedge Tailed Eagle.
It was getting some entrails out of a dead Wallaby, took off in plenty of time but dropped the strip of meat back on to the road. I kept slowing down and the Eagle came back for its dinner, missed it and flew away again....only to turn back in to my path. It made me duck my head but probably wasn’t that close.
An impressive bird anyway. There are hundreds of them. Life as a meat eating bird seems fairly easy with all the pre-prepared dinners on offer.
Some become victims of traffic though, apparently they sometimes eat so much that they struggle to take off.

The campsite at Croydon was a bargain. It had clean facilities, a shaded area for our tent and friendly fellow camper to chat with.
A nice afternoon and evening with only a few Doom stories.
We had a should we go or should stay now moment in the morning. Camping seems marginally better when staying for more than one night. Less set up and pack up hassle.
However, the seaside was calling and we set off to Karumba. Another 145 miles west. More straight deserted highway. More non biking roads. But I loved it. I thought whilst trundling along at about 55mph, what a great ride. What a great day. It just made me smile. As I do, in the inside anyway, most of the time I’m riding my bike.
I do like my bike, it’s not perfect but it’s bloody good. Nearly as good as an XRV750 Africa Twin. Nearly.

We saw a sign for an historic marker and as we’d done about 40 miles I decided to pull in.
Wow! The Gulflander Railmotor train was there.
The passengers enjoying their morning tea. I don’t know how old it is but it’s a beautiful looking thing. I’m so glad we pulled in.

The next town was Normanton, 95 or so miles from Croydon. Nothing in between. Apart from the Railmotor of course. No Road House, no villages.
At Normanton it was tea and sandwich o’clock. Here we met an interesting chap called Gordon and his wife. They’ve been in the road since 1987. ‘The children left home so we left home’ they said.
Since then they’ve done a few laps of Oz and he seemed to have a detailed map in his head. Lots of recommend place to see and stay at. I think I’ve remembered a few.
His big white bushy beard seemed to be a handy storage area for bits of sandwich that he dropped.
A funny and entertaining couple.

The temperature dropped by about 6 degrees as we approached Karumba. Down to 26 degrees according to the display on the bike.

Another great day on the road. Time to have a look about and see about some fishing.....

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