Spectacular and suprising Cooktown - North Queensland

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Leon H

Pack Dog
Joined
Feb 22, 2006
Messages
204
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Location
Townsville, Australia
Bike
BMW R1200GS
What an epic weekend?.I was only away for 3 days but it felt like a month.

Ever been on a ride where you thought it would all be pretty predictable, you expected nothing special to happen, but you just go with the flow and end up having one of the most surprising and spectacular adventures you have been on in years? Well that happened to me on the weekend. This story is going to take some explaining, so please bear with me as I will probably end up needing 3 or 4 posts this week to get all the photos together, and explain what happened as the photos just don?t do it justice.

I?ll start with Friday, day 1?..

A fully loaded BMW and a clear sunny day, a nice start to a ride.
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On Monday I got a call from a mate of mine who told me he was heading up to Cooktown on Thursday, and would I like to go. I said no worries sounds good, but I had a busy week and couldn?t leave until Friday morning, so I would meet him up there. Well my week was just totally mental, I was still packing stuff late on Thursday night, and when Friday morning rolled around I was just totally exhausted. Still Melissa and I jumped on the bikes and headed off.

Cooktown is about 650km north along the coast from my place. The road has been recently all tarred, so we opted to head up that way just so we could get there in reasonable time frame. There is an adventure way, but that takes a couple of days, and that was time we just didn?t have. The first few hours of the trip were occupied with cruising up the Bruce Highway, and across the Atherton Tablelands to Mareeba (I have mentioned that section of the ride in my previous ?North Queensland Birthday Bash? ride report?). Heading north of Mareeba the vegetation changes dramatically from the highland rainforest and green rolling hills, to hot and dry Cape York Savannah country. I must admit when I got to Mareeba I was thinking ?why am I doing this I don?t really feel like it?, but as soon as I got into the savannah proper I felt instantly rejuvenated.

The savannah from ?Bob?s lookout?. On the other side of those mountains is where the Daintree Rainforest starts, but over on this side it?s pretty dry.
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And I can report that this new road to Cooktown is a motorcyclists dream. Sweeping undulating curves, with a number of insanely twisty mountain passes thrown in for good measure. And the road is brand new so the surface is like a racetrack. If anyone is in north Queensland, they would be mad to miss this place as you could get there on any bike, anytime.

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Looking north towards Lakeland Downs at the top of the Byerstown Range, prior to beginning to drop down to the lowlands.

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I?m forever looking for that arty photo angle. The shot of the front of the bike would be good if the bloody fence weren?t in the road!

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We quickly stopped for fuel at Lakeland Downs, by this stage it was getting pretty late and a lot of kangaroos and cattle were coming onto the road, and we still had at least an hour to go.

Hey Mel it?s not a push bike!!!
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Off we blasted again, quickly stoping at Black Mountain, about 30km out of Cooktown. Black Mountain is basically a big pile of black rocks, and man it is bizarre. Apparently countless people have disappeared there over the years trying to explore it, so I wisely opted to stay in the viewing area. By stage it was getting pretty late, you can see the bike is in shade, and only the top of the mountain is illuminated.

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We pressed on again, and the natural beauty of this area is phenomenal. It is still very much a wilderness area, and too vast and profound to do any justice to in a photograph. We arrived in Cooktown pretty much at sunset, and rode down to the beach where Lt James Cook beached the Endeavour to fix hole in the hull in 1770.

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We planned on just going to a camping area in town to pop up the tent for a few days and catch up with the others on Saturday. But I had a message on my phone from Marius saying not to camp, to phone him as soon as I arrived. I gave him a call and he said ?You have to come up to Barry?s place, you won?t believe it? So we headed up towards Grassy Hill, the big headland at the east of town. We rode up a very steep and windy gravel track, and then turned off onto another over more difficult and narrow track that followed the top of a very steep ridge heading along a spur towards the ocean.

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By this stage it was almost dark and I was starting to wonder if was even in the right place, and how I could get out of this place. But as we rode around a corner we spied signs of a settlement.

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As we rode down my mate Marius came bounding out nowhere with a huge smile on his face. ?This place is awesome man, we have a great spot for you to camp, you won?t believe this place tomorrow wait until it is light!!.? He was just beaming so I figured there might be something a little bit special afoot. He also introduced us to Barry, his friend who owned the property, who I had an instant affiliation with, and will talk about soon. Marius led us back up a steep hill, we unloaded our bikes and walked pretty much over the edge of the cliff to our camp.


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Arriving at the camp it was pretty much dark. I knew we were near the ocean. The camp was a basic but delightful little humpy from what I could see, with a little kitchen and outdoor shower, but I couldn?t see too much. In the dark we set up the tent on the flattest bit of ground we could find. We stumbled through the dark towards the sound of people drinking, and ended up at Barry?s house on the northern side of a ridge (which I explain more of later), overlooking the mouth of the Endeavour River. We caught up with the other riders, and got to know Barry a bit better. After a delicious BBQ meal on the landing, we were so exhausted we trotted back through the bush to our camp and went to sleep. We knew tomorrow was going to be a big day as we discovered Cooktown, and more about this mysterious place were staying that no-one seemed to want to tell me anything about until tomorrow. I drifted off to sleep with a million thoughts about what was going on in my head, but I was so exhausted I slept straight through. Which was lucky as I was going to need my rest for what awaited us on Saturday???

To be continued????..
 
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