A dawdle over rolling hills to the cafe at the top of the Gillies Highway for a morning coffee and cake. Never too much cake.

Then it was over a few more hills, seemingly getting steeper, before starting down the Gillies Highway. This road is notorious for its winding corners which encourage people to go too fast. They misjudge a corner, skid or meet a vehicle over the centre line coming the other way and its all over, red rover.

My descent was an anticlimax.

The steel-framed Wayward Cape York was a good bike for the rough roads and corrugations as the springy steel absorbed the shocks.

The trouble was that the same springiness meant that the bike bent unpredictably in all directions when cornering at speed. The end result was not being able to enjoy the corners on the Gillies as I concentrated on keeping the bike upright on my side of the road. Disappointing.

I remembered hearing an impulse pump on the Gillies 40 years ago. The pump had been installed to enable the vehicles of the 1920’s and 1930’s  The locals told me that the pump had only been removed in the last few years.

Coming out of the Gillies, a short ride connected to the Bruce Highway at Gordon Vale.

Re-introduction to modern life occurred at the stoplights (!) where the Gillies met the Bruce but also as the touring cyclist pulled up heading south to Brisbane at the lights who completely ignored me and my laden touring beast approaching him.

An unpleasant 25 km of urban riding on the Bruce Highway brought me to Cairns proper.

Now Cairns is a rapidly growing tropical version of the Gold Coast and is not my cup of tea. It is also the mecca for Japanese tourists so finding accommodation in the centre of town is difficult or expensive.

The Tourist Centre near the railway station found me a reasonable ($90/night at the Hides Hotel) booking through Fusion Holidays (recommend them http://www.fusionholidays.com.au/ I have booked several items through them and they have been cheaper than anywhere else that I have found). The Hides hotel did not have bike parking so the bike had to be left chained in the undercroft carpark.

Cairns is a tourist town for young people. So the hotel was central but noisy which didn’t worry me.  The youngsters seemed to head to the pub at about 10pm when their shifts as waiters at the cafes finished. They then headed home about 2am. Good on ’em.

After a couple of days rest I caught the upgraded diesel tilt train back to Brisbane and then flew back to Perth.

And that folks is all there is

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