Saying
goodbye to Mark and Linda we headed toward Charters Towers, the road was not
entirely scenic however one has to tie the coolas bits together with a few
transit roads.
The history
at Charters Towers was awesome with big ties back to Marks family.
After
staying in Charters Towers we bailed south again ending up at Bedford Weir, a
very nice place indeed, yarning with some locals they too recommended Carnarvon
Gorge so our sites were set.
Blackwater
just around the corner we decided take the opportunity to repair Skippys
sidecar mudguard that was slowly tearing, some serious size washers and grunty
braces for a bit or AU cash and we were on our way.
Yet again
we peeled off through shortcut backroads which are much nicer than the traffic
infested main roads.
We spent 4
days in total wondering around like lost muppets enjoying the landscape with my
fav being the Amphitheatre, nothing short of a geological meca.
The entire
gorge is full of cool features carved by mum nature and the top lookout view
was well worth the hoof to the top.
You can just keep taking photo after photo, at some point you have to cut it and just enjoy your time there and appreciate this epic world.
Port
Douglas, two kiwis doing the terrorurist thing playing on the reef as ya do, a must do on our list for a long time.
Belinda
booked our trip so we had a committed date, we then tried to get a camp
site…school holidays made quick work of making this difficult, we did however
manage to get a site at a slight premium.
We had a
day out on the Great Barrier Reef with 3 lots of snorkeling and the most fish
we have ever seen per sq metre, to say it was awesome was an understatement so
for us a great day out doing civilian things like normal humans.
From Port
Douglas it was back to Cairns to Patrick and Belindas to do a round of oil
changes, bolt and nut tightening and just a general check over after the
roughness of the cape, while we were there this wee jet boat was there.
Cairns in the background from a roof top bar
A couple of
social days relaxing then on our way south towards Townsville with an overnight
stopover in between.
Houston and
Emily, two young moto travellers we met down in Tassie, we call them our kids…
good buggers!!, Townville in the home of Emilys Mum and Dad otherwise known as Mark
and Linda.
We were
invited to meet and stay with them which was so cool, both having seen us in
Emily and Houstons vids they felt like the already knew us…..boy were they in for a shock!
They are
both keen moto riders having CFL300L to travel their locale on, Mark was pretty
keen to see the strange tripod in person too, one part of our mission was to take Linda for a skid in Skippy...good fun.
Again we were made to relax and suffer a drink or two...apparently its social...or something π and a mandatory trip to the central lookout, Mark is a wealth of knowledge giving us the info on the surrounding areas, while nearly the top a Russian Freightliner came in to land at the airport and it was massive, it looked stunning slowly coming in, to me it is amazing something that weighs so much can fly.
The last
mission for Skippy was to check the sidecar alignment after the cape, with the
straight edges, tape measures and two engineers we corrected the alignment and
did check measures…job done, the sidecar fender had nearly split in half as
well so we did and 4 bolts and backing plate panel job to hold it all in place
till we get our new guard, Mark gave us a full concrete warrantee for the repair. (Once Skippy was off the concrete that was when the warrantee exipried π)
We sat down
each night for a few quiet ones as Mark and Linda were up for a few yarns.
The Monday
was a holiday but we managed to catch up with Bruce at TSV Sidecars, the Ural
Dealer and sidecar fabricator in Townsville.
We got to
write our date etc on Bruces wall of fame of Urals which made it to the top and
back.
Move over Lee the Kiwis are invading π, all in all yet again to a town we don't know the people have made it and we have thoroughly enjoyed it, enjoys Ellens vid
Musgraves,
our next turnoff to excitement arrived, the bad news of a death had become
apparent as we discovered Kiwi had broken both his legs off on the coros and
bailed, a little over 30000 km was his life but he did see a lot of Oz.
Although we had gone to the top of the Cape the second half was still waiting, our
approach was to sneak ahead of the impending school hols by going straight to
the top and as the masses arrived we would be on our way south…this plan worked
very well.
The intense
line of traffic carving its way to the top was astounding, we only had a max
2-3 minutes of vehicle free then again another long line snake of autos and
trailers.
Turning off
from Musgraves the ride would take us through Lakefield National Park.
It wasn’t
long and we found camp to enjoy the sun and warmth, something we had missed as
it had been very wet, we chatted to a couple in a beautiful overland truck for
some more bad ideas.
No neighbours ...WOHHOH
After our
usual setting up etc the walk around the area netted us seeing a 4.5m – 5.0m
croc sunning himself on the bank, he was a biggin and looked pretty glam before
he got wind of us and slinked off into the water, that feeling and fear of
seeing something like that in his back yard was awesome.
The raos with quite a few
water crossings up to about 400mm deep these were perfect bike washes to remove
some of the Cape from under Skippy.
Bar a few
vehicles this road was much quieter than the main affording us the time and
ease back to take in our ride rather than watching for traffic and heavy coros.
The road we
had taken set us up well for the entry to Cooktown, we stayed a couple of days
the in an adventure camp nearer the airport, the camp was a beautiful setting
and very relaxing.
Cooktown
included a tour through the museum and a stomp around town, given our
historical ties with Capt.James Cook it was worthy to see this.
From
Cooktown we headed south again via Cape Tribulation, this road was pretty cool
and steep in places again with water crossings, our next desto Port Douglas.
While at
the Cape the rain was pretty steady bordering slightly heavy, on the return leg
the creeks had risen and Ellen got a wet arse as the water came over the sidecar
entry on the left.
The wet
arse was the prompting for the cabin but the ridiculous cost deprompted it.
While at the top a must do is visit the DC3 crash site.
We decided
Plan C which was to hit it back to the Jardine River, a decision that would
turn out to be a winner as the Ferry broke down again, we were one of the last
5 to cross before it shit itself again leaving 6 km of travellers on either
side stranded…again.
We stayed
at the Jardine camp that night, just as we arrived so did a wave of heavy rain,
we took Skippy under the cover and decided it was great place to set up the
tent and with undercover valet parking.
The rain
stopped, a couple of hours later then the heat came followed by heavy rain all night
tanking the roads.
The Ferry
wasn’t moving so we had the exit road to ourselves till the first new culvert
crossing, upon arriving the dude came running out waving his arms…it was
slightly obvious what was going on with a grader (grater on the vid) and a front-end
loader both cleaning the detour out of mud and water.
We used 2wd
which we needed so we are getting our moneys worth out of that.
The further south we got the more the weatrher improved, we knocked off 30000km and this was the last known citing of Kiwi who subsequentlty got sick of the coros, suffered two broken leg and left us somewhere on the road at cape york.... R.I.P Kiwi may your plastic look after you well.
We left Coen with our newey aquiried two tone tan of Cape York red dust/mud ..earned.
