Wilsons Promontory to Cape York by bike - The Lynd Junction to Ravenshoe

Day: 022
Date: Friday, 18 August 2006
Summary: Riding from The Lynd Junction to Ravenshoe.
Start: The Lynd Junction
Finish: Ravenshoe
Daily Kilometres: 201
Total Kilometres: 2963
Weather: Cool and foggy early but warm to hot and partly cloudy for the rest of the day with easterly (head) winds.
Accommodation: Motel in Ravenshoe , Queensland .
Nutrition:
  Breakfast:  Peanut butter roll
  Lunch:  Pie, pastie and milkshake
  Dinner:  Chicken stir fry for dinner.
Encounters: None really.
Highlights: Passing through the recent volcanic area near Undarra National Park , with the extinct volcanic cones all around and the black volcanic rock in abundance (the Byrnes’ family visited Undarra in 2003 and saw the fantastic lava tubes and climbed some of the extinct cones).
Lowlights: The road, which was generally just a strip of bitumen wide enough for one vehicle, was busy with tourists and road-trains today.  This meant that I was always having to dive off onto the gravel verge and constantly getting sprayed with dust and gravel.

Journal:
I got up at 4:30am after left at 5:00am in the hope of getting a good early run with minimal traffic and wind.  It was cooler than I expected and it got to the point where my right hand, which has been experiencing some numbness, was incapable of changing gears using my twist grip.  I had to reach across and chane gears with my left hand.  As the sun rose, the dawn was made more spectacular by and eerie fog which extended across the road in parts and made the trees ghost-like.  Progress wasn’t as fast as I had hoped but I couldn’t work out whether it was the cold or maybe the road was gradually climbing.  I knew that during the course of the day I would be climbing up onto the Atherton Tableland.

By 8:00am the road had started to become quite busy with a lot of road trains carrying ore of some description and many tourists.  I was constantly getting off the narrow strip of bitumen onto the gravel verge to avoid traffic coming from either direction, although I couldn’t always hear the traffic from behind until it was almost on to me.  (Someone later told me that touring cyclists hate this piece of road and I can understand why.)

Unfortunately, the bad traffic conditions were a distraction from the marvellous volcanic area scenery.  Extinct cones could be seen in various directions and black volcanic rock was all around.

Later in the day, the road began climbing onto the Atherton Tableland.  It would have been good if it was a steady climb but, of course, it wasn’t.  It was a constant series of ups and downs with each succeeding “up” a bit longer than the preceding “down”.  I could feel my quads using every last bit of the strength they have acquired in the last three weeks.

Finally I reached Ravenshoe, the highest town in Queensland (believe it or not), at 6:00pm after a very long day (yet again the map distance underestimated the true distance as marked by road signs and measured on my odometer).  I was lucky to get the last motel room in town and felt pleased with the kilometres covered and metres ascended for the day in difficult conditions.  I should have an easy run into Cairns tomorrow and a day off on Sunday staying with my cousin, Phil and his family.