Took a shower this morning and then packed everything back onto the bike to be on the road by 8am but wound up soaked through with sweat in less than 15 minutes. The day is not starting well.
After taking a run along the waterfront I headed north. While parked up in Innisfail at McDonalds with a coffee texting my brother and complaining about the heat he gives me the usual "harden the f**k up" speach so I get out the tablet and start looking for some bendy roads. If I'm gonna be melting I might as well have some fun at the same time.
The route chosen, I ring Cooktown to book accommodation only to be told I'll never make it before dark (and we all remember what happens with roos when the sun goes down) so I just bite the bullet and keep heading north instead.
Turns out, it's the right choice. Cairns to Port Douglas - 57 klms of winding beachfront road. You know it's going to be good when the sign says Caution: Motorcycle Crash Zone Next 57klm.
Sea breezes, no traffic, and many, many corners (or perhaps it would be easier to say no straight sections).
From Port Douglas it was up over Mt Molloy and 32 klms of fantastic road surface and unbelievably great corners.
From Mt Molloy it was a roll on
through to the Mulligan Highway which started out looking like another
long straight stretch but wound up being the most interesting part of
the journey to date.
Highlights
along the way: dodged Brahman cattle countless times; rode 36 klm's
through smoke from a bushfire; passed a mountain that looked like it was
man made by giant dump trucks loaded with boulders; and in less than
100 metres got shunted to the right lane and back to the left by a
whirlwind.
Glad to arrive in Cooktown at the end of a very long, eventful day. Oh, and just as I enter the township, the first police radar trap of the journey (and lucky for me he already had a victim).
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| Today's Route |
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| The journey so far.... |
