After riding my mountain bike from Adelaide to Darwin in 2005, I was keen for another such adventure, but one that returned to the kind of back roads I travelled when riding from Sydney to Melbourne in 2004. I hatched the idea of riding from the southernmost tip to the northernmost tip of mainland Australia, and rather than riding along the main (coastal) highway, try and ride a straight-line route that would necessarily take me on back roads and through a variety of terrains and climates.

Wilsons Promontory to Cape York by bike - Cooktown to Old Laura

Day: 027
Date: Wednesday, 23 August 2006
Summary: Riding Cooktown to Old Laura.
Start: Cooktown
Finish: Old Laura
Daily Kilometres: 109
Total Kilometres: 3449
Weather: Warm, sunny and humid with easterly winds.
Accommodation: Old Laura National Park back country campground, Lakefield National Park , Queensland .
Nutrition:
  Breakfast:  The “Big Brekkie” from a Cooktown café
  Lunch:  Peanut butter roll and apple
  Dinner:  Peanut butter roll and muesli bars
Encounters: A few kangaroos early in the day.
Highlights: None really.
Lowlights: Fell off my bike three times in soft sand, unable to get my feet out of the toe clips in time.

Journal:
The campground was awake early as all of the Variety Bash guys left well before 6:30am.  I had decided to get breakfast at the nearby café when it opened at 7:00am so didn’t get up until 6:15am.  After breakfast, I picked up some bread rolls at a bakery and left town about 7:50am.

The road was sealed at first but after 20km turned to gravel as it began to climb through the Great Dividing Range .  The mountains aren’t that high but still tough work on a bike.  I stopped for a quick morning ice-cream at a small store and then continued on.  As the road climbed, its quality deteriorated and progress became slower and slower.  The countryside went from lush tropical to dry arid forest as the day progressed, although there was at least a bit of water in most creeks and rivers.

Eventually I reached the other side of the mountains and crossed the Normanby River , one of several I had to wade through during the day (checking for crocs first!).  I heard later a tourist had rolled their rental 4WD just after one of these crossings. After the Normanby River the road really deteriorated and was a constant sequence of corrugations, rocks and soft sand.  It was also quite warm and I was getting very tired and hot.  Three falls, the last of which drew blood from my right elbow and shin, did not improve my mood.  In the end I decided that rather than try and press on to Kalpower Campground, which was supposed to have the best facilities, I would stop at Old Laura, which had no facilities and get going at an earlier hour tomorrow.  It’s more than 160km to Musgrave, my target for tomorrow night.

I only covered 109km today, but it was hard slow work, and probably a good sample of what awaits me for the next week.  Nevertheless, I only have 800km to go now, which doesn’t seem much.
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