Day 25 – Cooktown to Cairns 243k’s (The Final Day)

The day started with dark clouds and rain in Cooktown, but with the Bureau of Meteorology maps showing only spotty rain, we set off hoping that we would not get too wt.

Before we left we had a quick rendezvous with Narelle, the reporter for the Cooktown Times and then we headed out of town towards the Bloomfield Track. The trip was uneventful as we headed into the rainforest around Rossville apart from encountering road works and a number of vehicles on the track. We made good time to Ayton and then turned up along high above the Bloomfield River as we headed for the river crossing. We had been told the day before by the road workers at a major ford on the Battle Camp Road that there was not much water in the Bloomfield River and that was the case with the dry Irish Crossing.

From there we headed up into the Daintree National Park towards Cape Tribulation. By now it had started to sporadically rain and the steep track was quite slippery with some of the water crossings rocky and deep which made them a quite different experience then what we had previously encountered. For Liam one water crossing turned out to be a very different experience when he came across half a dozen Scottish backpackers wandering along looking for a special pool that they had been told held turtles. When we caught up with Liam he was off his bike entertaining them with stories of his travels, which no doubt sounded heroic to his audience. We headed on, led by Clarkey to discover Miles had fallen in the next river crossing and was pinned under his bike. We rescued Miles and his bike, which would not start. We waited for Bruce and the tools to turn up and when they did much to our surprise Bruce had “rescued” the Scottish backpackers and they were riding on the Ford.

Despite the distractions Bruce and Liam soon had Miles’ bike running and we all headed off towards Cape Tribulation. The rainforest was very dense and the topography rugged with steep slippery slopes with tight bends and rocky river crossings thrown in. Liam managed to fall off but did not hurt himself.

We eventually got to Cape Tribulation for lunch, by now it was raining and the Cape did not look its best.

From Cape Tribulation we were on the bitumen and in wet riding conditions wound our way to the Daintree River ferry. From the ferry we headed South in what was now pouring rain which made riding difficult. However despite the conditions we reached Cairns late in the afternoon although we had one more mishap when Clarkey hit a patch of oil on the road and came off.

And so it was with much relief that we arrived at our final stop in Cairns.