The Cormanus Chronicles: FNQ

[Cormanus]

Far North Queensland

As the Pterodactyl flies, it’s a lazy 2,283 kms from Sydney to Brisbane to Cooktown. It’s a bit further by CB1100 which is happily constrained by roads.

I’d been contemplating a ride to Far North Queensland (FNQ) for some time and mentioned to Pterodactyl that I might do it while the weather was cool and he was away on the other side of the planet. Before I quite knew what had happened, it was happening before his planned departure.

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FNQ is further from Brisbane than Melbourne (just) and, like many remote places, people there feel very separate and under-appreciated. It’s probably fair enough: it’s a long way, the climate is different and they face entertainments—cyclones, crocodiles and irukandji (or box) jellyfish and the like—denied to those of us who live further south. And, of course, we just don’t understand them.

And so it came to pass that, on a morning early in May, after Pterodactyl had made the first leg of the trip—I assume as the CB travels, but who’d know—I met him at a service station in the northern suburbs of Brisbane. Laden with gear we pointed north and took a land-based route.

The map of the entire trip can be located [url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=1tkXBOyISHS9wGw_7Sajq0dJqhxySj-ro&usp=sharing]here. As usual, enthusiasts can select whichever day’s ride(s) they want and zoom in and out for more or less detail.

Day 1: Brisbane—Biloela (625 kms)
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[url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=1tkXBOyISHS9wGw_7Sajq0dJqhxySj-ro&usp=sharing]Link to the full map

After a few minutes on the national highway we headed inland through the very pretty Burnett region. The road’s are not particularly windy, but there’s enough turning and undulation to make it an interesting ride. It’s pretty, too. Just after Gayndah we passed a chap exercising his BMW 800GT. He hooked in behind us and joined us while we refuelled and ate at Eidsvold. I think he may have been a tad envious of our planned adventure.

We reached Biloela without further incident and took a room in a motel from which we could watch the Jerez master class delivered by Marc Marquez.
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Cormanus hits the trail

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Pterodactyl’s CB

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Brunch at Moore

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The Big Mandarin at Gayndah

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The road and topography earlier in the day

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The road approaching Biloela
Day 2: Biloela to Belyando Crossing (623 kms)

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[url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=1tkXBOyISHS9wGw_7Sajq0dJqhxySj-ro&usp=sharing]Link to the full map

Another glorious day saw us underway early and heading 70 kms or so to the Wowan Roadhouse where we refuelled the bikes and ourselves for the long and relatively straight day ahead of us. Heaven knows why Wowan exists, but the roadhouse had a good feel and we had a pleasant breakfast and conversation with a couple of travellers.

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The roadhouse at Wowan

There’s not a lot to tell about the day’s travel. This is open country with 100-200 kms between fuel stops. On the CB, that requires a little planning and continued application of NoRoomToMove’s First Law of Motion and Fuel Consumption. Conditions were great—sunny with mild temperatures and the bikes rolled along easily through Queensland’s coal-mining country.

The beaming faces of a multitude of un-made-up clowns seeking election to the nation’s Parliament on 18 May beamed at us from corflutes nailed to way-too-many trees. Likewise signs encouraging the opening of a new coal mine were prevalent. At Clermont, where we stopped for fuel, the pub was festooned with banners in response to an anti-mine protest that had had rolled through town a few days before.
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A milestone for Cormanus

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Somewhere on the A4 approaching Emerald

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Water and comfort stop on the A4

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There are fantastically long coal trains hauling their load across to the ports. I can never get over their sheer length.

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I finally got one of these mirror shots to work!

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I never got close enough to find out exactly what this bike was, but I think it was a modified 2-stroke carrying its owner home from work to Clermont

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One of many enormous road trains. They move a phenomenal amount of air and it pays to be right on the opposite shoulder when passing. I can’t imagine trying to overtake one in the rain.

Nightfall saw us at Belyando Crossing where there’s a roadhouse with motel rooms and a camp site and not much else. We took a room on the basis that it was late and we had another long day ahead of us.

[the Ferret]

Alright.... another of " Cormanus' Excellent Adventures"

[Cormanus]

Day 3: Belyando Crossing to Mt Surprise (629 kms)

[url=https://postimages.org/]
[url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=1tkXBOyISHS9wGw_7Sajq0dJqhxySj-ro&usp=sharing]Link to the full map

Our usual riding practice is to have a cup of tea first thing and then hit the road for 100 kms or so (about an hour) before stopping for a late breakfast and coffee. That way we can usually muddle through until dinner time without major food stops. This day, our first possible stop would be for fuel in Charters Towers (nearly 200 kms up the road) so we had breakfast at Belyando Crossing before setting out.

Many of these outback places are staffed by young backpackers (who can get an extension on their working holiday visa if they work for a period in a remote area) or other itinerants. Presumably many of them are happy to work for lower wages, but it may also be that they’re the only staff such places can get. The woman who sold us breakfast was not a backpacker; she was a New Zealander, with her husband, on an extended caravanning trip in Australia which they were supporting by stopping and working from time to time.

Pterodactyl has often suggested that we swap bikes for a while just because we can, but we’ve never really got around to it. This morning we did, on the pretext that he wanted us both to see whether his Dart Flyscreen made any difference. I think I he wanted to see whether it was true black ones are faster. I finally got to take a picture of my own bike under way.
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Pterodactyl on a black one. I couldn't catch him so it must have been faster.

For the record, I found the Flyscreen did make a difference. The wind hit my chest slightly higher and the noise in my helmet increased slightly as disturbed air pushed higher. It made me wonder whether a little screen might improve the burden of touring, at least on some days. I was to wonder about it further on the way home.
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Lanyard cam is old and sometimes the shutter cover does not open properly giving this curious effect

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A rest break at the Greenvale Roadhouse 400 kms up the road from breakfast

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Just over 100 kms later another milestone clicked over. Two days, two milestones isn’t a bad effort even in kilometres.

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A late hydration stop at the junction of A62 and National Highway 1

I mentioned large trucks earlier and needing to be on the opposite shoulder when they passed. Imagine overtaking either of these beasts in the rain with 70 tyres pumping dirty water all over your visor. Imagine doing it wearing an open-face helmet?
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Mt Surprise was a mandatory stop on our trip as it had been the scene of one of Pterodactyl’s earliest paid jobs. It’s for him to tell you about it, or not, but I can reveal that he lived pretty rough, camping near the creek running past the town boundary.
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Riding into Mt Surprise

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Near the site of the original camp. We probably would have camped there if the killjoys hadn’t erected signs telling us it was banned

We pitched our tents in one of the two or three caravan and camping parks and had an early dinner. When we tried to adjourn to the pub next door for a good-night beer, we discovered the place was on an early closing regime and we were out of luck. We had an early night.
Day 4: Mt Surprise to Port Douglas (371 kms)

[url=https://postimages.org/]
[url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=1tkXBOyISHS9wGw_7Sajq0dJqhxySj-ro&usp=sharing]Link to the full map

FNQ is where Pterodactyl comes from and this day was about some visits to important places in his early life. It would also mark the first day we had descended from the plateau of the Great Dividing Range since climbing it shortly after leaving Brisbane.
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A termite mound, one of thousands beside the road in this country

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A food stop in Mt Garnet

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These clay tennis-court-coloured roads appear all over this part of Queensland

One of the things I really like about FNQ is that the mountains, although not remotely tall by world standards, rise steeply from the sea. There is often a very short plain between the edge of the water and the foothills. The next pictures show these mountains coming into view as we made our way east. They also show that there is considerably greater rainfall nearer the coast providing lovely rainforest. The ancient Daintree rain forest, north of Cairns and Port Douglas is a World Heritage area.
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We stopped for fuel and a drink in Malanda before making our way to the Gillies Range Road for the descent into Cairns. I took no photos as I was too busy concentrating on the road—a series of corners beautifully made for motorcyclists. They were worth the effort, and with almost none of the switchbacks that I find the CB1100 doesn’t much like. That may be code for I don’t much like them. Who knows?

This section of the road is around 19 kilometres long and amongst the best I’ve ridden. Motorcycle heaven.
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[url=https://www.google.com.au/maps/dir/-17.2221642,145.6691218/-17.1483446,145.7130733/@-17.1867255,145.688201,13.97z/data=!4m2!4m1!3e0?hl=en]This link will take you to a view of it.

After a couple of stops in Cairns, we made our way north along the lovely coast road. Twenty-seven kilometres, from Ellis Beach to Oak Beach runs along the narrow strip of flat-ish land between the Coral Sea and the Great Dividing Range. Our destination was the tourist town of Port Douglas. It’s hot, it’s tropical and it provides easy access to the Great Barrier Reef, but the beach is not nearly so lovely as more southern beaches. And it’s ridiculously hot in the summer. For a young, itinerant person, it’s a place of endless opportunity.
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A view from the coast road between Cairns and Port Douglas
Day 5: Port Douglas to Cooktown and return (561 kms)

[url=https://postimages.org/]
[url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=1tkXBOyISHS9wGw_7Sajq0dJqhxySj-ro&usp=sharing]Link to the full map

We spent the night in a cabin in one of the caravan parks in Port Douglas. It was not that we were too lazy to set up our tents again; rather, time was a bit of an issue and we wanted to make Cooktown the northernmost point of our trip. To meet our various deadlines, that required a reasonably early start to cover what we expected would be more than 600 kilometres up and back.

Another glorious morning greeted us as we rode north towards Mossman and another exquisite 10 km stretch of road to take us back up the range.
[url=https://postimages.org/]
[url=https://www.google.com.au/maps/dir/-16.4833645,145.3906466/-16.5445357,145.3827537/@-16.5168385,145.37825,13.97z/data=!4m2!4m1!3e0?hl=en]This link will take you to a map view of it.

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Passing through sugar cane country before the climb

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At the top of the range

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Breakfast and fuel stop at Mt Carbine Roadhouse

I think I expected the road along Cape York to be like this …
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Bits of it were, but some of it was like this …
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There were plenty of hills and undulations and corners to keep a rider interested. It was a more enjoyable ride to Cooktown than I expected and a very pretty place when we got there.

Cooktown is so-called because it was the place James Cook, the British explorer who first charted the east coast of Australia and paved the way for the English colonisation, beached his ship, the Endeavour, for repairs after he holed it on part of the Great Barrier Reef. It’s a small town, but, as I said, pretty and with a good harbour. It would be an agreeable place to spend some time exploring on another trip.
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The Cooktown pub

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The harbour

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I’ve no idea where this propeller came from, but it wasn’t the Endeavour

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The end of the road for this trip. At the mouth of the Endeavour River overlooking the Coral Sea. From here we were on the way home

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A view south leaving Cooktown

The next brief stop was at Black Mountain, Kalkajaka in the local language. These two extraordinary mounds of large black rocks stand in stark contrast to the verdant, green-covered hills around them.
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View north from the James Earl Lookout

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View south from Bob’s Lookout

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Another day another milestone

Our plan was to refuel at Mt Molloy before riding down the hill again, along the coast road and then up the range on the Kennedy Highway to Kuranda where we would spend the night. All went well until we got the bottom of the hill and Pterodactyl realised we would be arriving after dark. So we stopped at another caravan park near Port Douglas, pitched our tents and settled in for the night.
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Views from the Mossman Mt Molloy Rd

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Scenic camp site near Port Douglas

[GoldOxide_imp]

Super swell. Well done gents. Roads look peaceful and sites divine.

[Rocky_imp]

I always love these road trips and the super pictures that go along with them
I especially enjoyed this one because I spent five days in Port Douglas and flew over the Great Barrier Reef in a chopper.
PD is a lovely little town and reminded me so much of the small coastal towns around here - but ours aren't tropical
Great story and pictures.

[Blockhead_imp]

Superbly done as always, Cormanus.

[Houtman_imp]

Thank you for the great story and pictures !!!

[the Ferret]

Superbly done as always, Cormanus.

Thank you for the great story and pictures !!!

Indeed! Nice mirror shot btw. Man those 2 CB's look good together!

[Stichill_imp]

Terrific write-up Cormanus. I really felt like I was with you guys and experiencing the sights you saw.

Such a diverse landscape you have to ride in!

This photo could have been taken in some parts of the Southern Appalachian mountains in the US:



And this one is reminiscent of some areas of the southwestern region of the US:

[pdedse]

Excellent wright-up and photos, Cormanus...very enjoyable to see the landscape and vistas of eastern Australia. I really need to visit...my idea would be to rent a motorcycle and tour parts of the country. My Adelaide living sister would expect me to "visit" for 4 weeks.