Oz Blog
I woke on Friday morning to discover it had rained during the night. Just to put this in perspective; by 7.30am the ground was only slightly damp and the sky was largely blue and cloud-free. Just what King Charles wants as he lands for his visit today.
I had a pretty chilled day, staying local on the bike and having a walk around Port Douglas before getting back and cooling off in the pool.
We went for dinner at Seabeam, a tapas bar restaurant. Sat at an outside table in the warm evening the food and service was excellent. After that it was on to Jimmy Rum’s Mixing Lounge for a couple of drinks, where I tried Watkins whisky which is distilled in Queensland, about sixty miles from Port Douglas. It was very good, so I had another one. Conor had an Irish whisky and Kerry a Glenfiddich, as they seem to have developed a taste for whisky recently. Nothing wrong with that!
Saturday morning dawned and Conor and I set off on the bikes just before eight for a ride to the Atherton Tablelands, which is a lush, fertile region of rainforest, wetland and savannah rising more than seven hundred metres above sea level. We rode south to Cairns before picking up the Gillies Range road, which runs from Gordonvale in the Cairns Region through the Gillies Range (part of the Great Dividing Range) to Atherton in the Tablelands Region, The highway is known for its 263 corners, and 800 metres elevation change in only 19 km of road, and is a popular tourist drive as there are plenty of places to stop and take photos as you ascend.
Motorcyclists tend not to stop along the way, and I’m told it’s quite common to find bikers who will ride up and down several times just for the fun of it. Think of the Mossman Mount Molloy Road as the nursery slope, and this as the real thing.
We came across a number of slower vehicles, and as overtaking opportunities are limited it wasn’t easy to get good footage, but there’s a short video at https://youtu.be/xUwJkBi8kfg which will hopefully give some idea.
Our first stop once at the top was at Lake Barrine, billed as being where the rainforest meets the lake. This family-run tearoom is set in stunning surroundings, and during the war was used to help rehabilitate wounded servicemen. Among other things you can safely swim in the lake as any crocs in this area are freshwater crocodiles which are considered timid and non-life-threatening to humans. They may get aggressive if disturbed, but can’t we all! The tea shop offers a Devonshire Special, which is their own baked scones with jam and whipped cream. It looked very nice, but as any self-respecting Janner knows it should be clotted cream, and the jam should go on last! We both had bacon and egg rolls which were excellent.
Our next stop was Millaa Millaa Falls, which you may recognise from the photo below as it was the setting for a Herbal Essences advert. The falls cascade 18 metres to a waterhole where you can swim and cool off, but that’s for another time. We also stopped briefly at Barron Falls, which is another on the watertfall Circuit.
We carried on to Tolga, and a beer at the Tolga Hotel. A number of other bikers had the same idea and there’s a good picture below of the bikes parked in front of the hotel. Although the drink drive limit is stricter here than in UK, advice is that you drink no more than two standard drinks in the first hour and one per hour thereafter (for men of average size), or no more than one standard drink per hour (for women of average size).
Repeat drink-drive offenders can have an ignition interlock device fitted to their car, which is a breath-testing device connected to the ignition and stops a driver from starting the car if they have been drinking alcohol.
We just had one schooner of mid-strength beer and carried on.
Our last stop was at Dan Murphy’s in Cairns to pick up supplies, and from there home Conor managed to carry a bottle of whisky, six bottles of wine and a box of thirty cans of beer on the bonnie. These pommie bikes are good!
We arrived home eight hours after leaving, having ridden about four hundred kilometers (two hundred and fifty miles) on some great roads and through some stunning scenery. It had been a great day, which photos and video can’t do justice to. A slight touch of the Betty Swollocks was a small price to pay, and easily remedied by changing into shorts and allowing the air to circulate while having a walk along the beach and a couple of rinks at The Tav!
Barrbequed rib fillet steaks finished the day nicely!
Click on some of the links to get more of an idea, or better still make a plan to come out and see for yourself.
Pictures show some more views of Port Douglas, huntsman spider I met, supermoon over Port Douglas, part of our ride, Millaa Millaa Falls, Millaa Millaa (I don't know what that's about!), Barron Falls, Tonga Hotel, the ride back, checking the sky for signs of rain, Kerry and I at The Tav.
Don't forget the video clip at https://youtu.be/xUwJkBi8kfgÂ
