Wilsons Promontory to Cape York by bike - Cairns to Cape Tribulation

Day: 025
Date: Monday, 21 August 2006
Summary: Riding from Cairns (Brinsmead) to Cape Tribulation .
Start: Cairns
Finish: Cape Tribulation
Daily Kilometres: 133
Total Kilometres: 3236
Weather: Mild and cloudy at first, then warm, sunny and humid with south-easterly winds.
Accommodation: Basic cabin at backpackers resort, Cape Tribulation , Queensland .
Nutrition:
  Breakfast:  Cereal and toast
  Lunch:  Pie and sausage roll
  Dinner:  Sausages and vegetables for dinner
Encounters: In Mossman I bumped into the New Zealander who had stopped his car to have a chat with me a week ago when I was riding from Muttaburra to Hughenden.  He was now on his bike (a recumbent with trailer) following a route recommended by Lonely Planet.  I invited him to give me a call when he came down to the Sydney area.
Highlights: It was a day of highlights.  Perhaps the best was the beautiful sunset stroll I had along the sweeping palm tree-fringed Myall Beach at Cape Tribulation, freshly showered after having completed a very satisfactory day’s riding.
Lowlights: My bike computer started playing up in the first few kilometres and, despite changing its batteries, it still only seems to be working intermittently.  It’s not a great problem, although it does help a bit with navigation and time management.  My right knee was quite painful for most of the day.

Journal:
I got on the road shortly before 7:00am and negotiated the early morning peak hour traffic as I headed north.  I noticed my bike computer wasn’t working and changed the batteries, but it still seemed to be malfunctioning.  Not a critical problem.  The early part of the trip was through suburbs and then cane fields, before the road travelled along the beautiful coast with a thin strip of sandy beach against a backdrop of steep jungle-covered mountains that occasionally formed precipitous headlands.  I had a nice following wind, and despite the narrow road and busy tourist traffic (minibus after minibus heading for the Daintree) and occasional sharp hills, thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle.

Near Port Douglas the road swung away from the coast to Mossman and began passing through cane fields still against the same mountain backdrop.  Some of the cane was being cut and loaded into the narrow gauge rail wagons that are used for local transportation to the mills.  Around this time, I actually caught a guy out training on his road bike, so I must have been travelling OK!

In Mossman I stopped for a break and bumped into the New Zealander I had met a week earlier in outback Queensland .  I continued on to the Daintree River ferry stopping occasionally to have a look at some of the very pretty beaches.  After the ferry the road was narrow and winding as it passed through dense tropical rainforest. Both sides of the road were a chaotic jumble of vines, leaves and trees and it was very beautiful.  I had to negotiate a couple of steep mountain ranges as I continued north and resorted to walking at one point when the road became too steep.  It was also quite humid and I was sweating a lot, although the breeze helped cool me off at my frequent stops to admire the views or beaches.

Around 4:00pm I reached PK’s Jungle Resort where I had earlier called to book a basic room and checked in.  It is the same place where Barb, Aaron, Alicia and I had camped on our trip round Australia three years ago.  After a quick shower, I went for a very pleasant walk along the nearby beach before dinner.  Although it’s only 103km to Cooktown tomorrow, I’m quite apprehensive about some of the very steep hills and rough trail I know I am going to encounter, particularly for the first 35km.