Only eight full days to we set off.
Bruce has set up a blog just for this ride – check out stragglingstuetal.wordpress.com
My new Shimano SPD touring sandals have arrived from Wiggle. Now the fun of finding the right position …
AAA Cranking up for ‘Creeks and crocodiles’ tour from Cairns to Darwin
Just the facts Mamm;
Riders – 4 to start, a fifth to join halfway
Distance – about 3000 km depending on which national parks we decide to see
Time – 8-10 weeks depending on how casually we ride
Road type …
Day 90 10 July Cairns and this is the finish!
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 …
Day 89 9 July Milla Milla to Malanda Crater Lakes
Out of Milla Milla the worst way. With a 2km climb up a hill.
Then 20 km of rolling hills and a dangerously narrow main road to Malanda.
Malanda was having its annual agricultural show so took the opportunity to …
Day 88 8 July Milla Milla
A day off in lovely Milla Milla.
Bacon and eggs at one cafe, a walk up the street to the museum and coffee and scones at another.
Some of the locals gave some background on why the old Milla Milla …
Day 87 7 July Inot Hot Springs to Milla Milla
A good road and a more of less continuous gradual climb up the western fall of the Great Dividing Range to Ravenshoe (the last climb into town was a grind).
Ravenshoe is pretty much at the highest point on the …
Day 86 6 July Mount Garnet and Inot Hot Springs
Last day on the dirt.
Packed up and headed north.
The road kept getting better and after about 40 kms just past Minnamoolka Station it even became bitumen!
Then it was just a grind into Mount Garnet at about 4pm. …
Day 85 5 July Valley of Lagoons
At three in the morning a four wheel drive ute growled and bumped its way past my camp. Bloody hell, some farmer is keen to get to town!
Anyway the ute took the western fork in the road so that …
Day 84 4 July Kangaroo Hills and Melissa, the National Trail Legend
Struck camp after drying off the light rain.
Downhill ride for twenty kilometres to Hidden Valley Resort (For Sale) but the road got progressively rougher so the thirty kilometers to the Ewan iron ore mine (closed) took four hours!
Popped …
Day 83 3 July ‘Go somewhere else!!’
Time to wrap it up.
I ring Robyn back in Perth ‘hello sweetie, I have finished and am ready to come home’.
Robyn to Stuart ‘no way, I am not ready, go somewhere else!’
Hmmmm. Not what I was expecting.…