Wilsons Promontory to Cape York by bike - Musgrave to Coen

Day: 030
Date: Saturday, 26 August 2006
Summary: Riding from Musgrave to Coen.
Start: Musgrave
Finish: Coen
Daily Kilometres: 106
Total Kilometres: 3721
Weather: Warm to hot and sunny with easterly winds.
Accommodation: Basic cabin at Exchange Hotel, Coen , Queensland .
Nutrition:
  Breakfast:  Sausages and eggs
  Lunch:  Two pies
  Dinner:  Roast
Encounters: I met a couple of Irish guys travelling around Australia in the pub at Coen who had seen me near the Daintree and whose car had now broken down. We had a long chat as they do some bike-riding themselves and will probably get to the Cape about the same time.
Highlights: A relatively easy day’s riding after the trials of the previous three days. Although there were some rocky and corrugated bits, most of the road was hard-packed and smooth.
Lowlights: Nearly getting cleaned up by a 4WD that passed me on the inside.  I was in the middle of the road trying to find the smoothest path when I heard a car behind me and turned to the left as I looked behind.  Fortunately, I saw just in time that the 4WD was coming up on my inside and I was able to swerve the other way and avoid a collision.

Journal:
I got up at 6:30am, but had to hang around until 7:30am when the café opened before I could get breakfast.  I spent the time chatting to a couple who were on their way from Weipa, after two years there, to new jobs near Mackay.  They had passed a serious car accident about 150km north that I later learned had involved fatalities.

I left Musgrave soon after 8:00am and made good time northwards on a well-formed unsealed road.  There was quite a bit of climbing up to the crest of the Great Divide at 270m, and then the road pretty much followed the crest for the remainder of the way to Coen.  There were lots of significant ups and downs, particularly to “Dips” where creeks crossed the road, and it got quite hot on the ascents.  There was water in some of the “Dips”, but not deep, and I sped through.  The countryside was all undulating eucalypt forest with dry grassy undergrowth, occasionally burnt back, and some small peaks off to the side.

I arrived in Coen soon after 2:00pm after a particularly rough road for the last 10km and I’m hoping it improves on the other side of Coen when I leave tomorrow.  Coen is a pretty dead dry and dusty small town, with one pub, a general store/service station and a take-away.  It’s the last settlement before Bamaga near Cape York .  I checked in to the hotel and was given a basic room in the “Donga”, a prefab building containing a number of bedrooms connected to another prefab containing a shared bathroom. After a shower and late lunch, I bought a few supplies and relaxed for the afternoon.  I recalculated my remaining days and found that I have less distance to cover than I had thought.  I should easily be able to make Bamaga/Seisia by Wednesday night and ride out and back to the Cape on Thursday, assuming all goes well.