Kuranda National Park to Julatten Tablelands

39km. I got woken about 5am by multiple logging trucks heading along the road into the logging areas. At dawn I heard a truck stop near where I was camped (I couldn’t be seen from the road), and do something with chains. I panicked and thought that they were going to unload a bulldozer and start leveling the area where I was camped. I started a rush pack, but the truck left, I guess he was just checking his chains tying his load down.

I cooked breakfast and was on the road by 8:30am. I rode past areas where they were logging, but again after a few kms there was nothing but forest and me. I reentered Kuranda National Park, with the track becoming more windy and steep. It would climb and then drop down to a flowing creek and then rise again. I had only one car pass me in about 3 hours on this track. It has hard on the uphills because they were so steep I could not ride them, and had to push the loaded bicycle.

Eventually I left the national park and got to farmland and sugar cane plantations. Everything is so green and lush. The whole area is at 400m, so the weather is mild but also wet.

I was aiming to get to Mossman, but I passed a caravan park at the 9 mile out of Mossman which I thought was closed but it wasn’t. It was pretty full but I found a corner to camp in, and they only charged $10.

I had flat batteries on almost everything. I have a 40w solar panel on the back of the bike, but it has been so cloudy and the rainforest so dark, that nothing was getting charged.

Using the wood stove to cook breakfast
Riding through Kuranda National Park
Its lonely being a logger in the remote Kuranda Forest
Riding through the dark Kuranda Rainforest

 

 

 

Kuranda to Kuranda National Park

25km. I left Kuranda Caravan park late. I was so tired from the previous days ordeal. I rode 5km in to Kuranda Village and got supplies at the FoodWorks supermarket. I would have thought that Kuranda Village being so small it would have bicycles everywhere to get around. However no bicycles other than me, lots of 4wd utes.

I then headed back over the Barron River bridge and along Black Mountain road. It only took a few kms to get into Kuranda National Park. Initially there was a fair bit of traffic. 4wds, trail bikes and downhill bicycles. After a 10kms or so the traffic stopped and it was just me. The road wound up and down through thick rainforest, over flowing creeks, and then would open up into a logging area, before going back to rainforest. 

I was still tired from the previous day, so I stealth camped early at 3pm at the edge of the National Park in a logged out area.

Camped at Kuranda Caravan Park
The start of the National Park
Someone had a bad time on Black Mountain Road
Stealth camped at the edge of the Rain-forest in a logged out area

 

Cairns to Kuranda

37 km. 10th July 2021. I am following a GPS track that I found online that leads from Cairns to Cape York. It looked good, but the first part of the route was the 400m climb up to Kuranda on the Kuranda road. I thought this would be a better route than the coast road that I though would be so busy. I was so wrong.

The Kuranda road is horrible for bicycle riders. I walked half of the 12km up because it was to dangerous to ride because it was so narrow.  I definitely won’t be doing that road again. I should have seen if I could of got on the train, or anything else.

About 5pm I finally got to the caravan park at Kuranda, and pretty well collapsed asleep as soon as it got dark.

 

the bike in the box that it flew in from Adelaide to Cairns. I stayed at the Castaway backpackers in Cairns who were pretty friendly
Loaded up ready to leave Cairns
Stopped at the lookout on the horrible Kuranda Road