July 10 Cooktown to Mount Isa (Queensland)

Travel Log for 7.10.2007 Cooktown to Mount Isa (Queensland)

Cooktown-Laura-Lakeland-Mount Molloy-Mareeba
It was Cooktown to the north or was it south...? As I was looking to travel up Cape York with grand ideas of going to the very last petrol stop...checking with the Cooktown police station, they recommended that I take the scenic dirt road to Laura, which accordingly to one of the policeman was in grand shape (You know where I am going with this story). I get on the road to Laura and the corrugations were a bloody nightmare to the point where I had to stop completely to keep the bike on the road. It was 100km of corrugations to Laura plus a couple of water crossings along with eating dust from 30 dirt bikers and another lot of 4WD’s......I finally get to Laura and being the bright lad that I am I again ask if the road up the Cape is any better? The statement was if I thought the road to Laura was bad the road up the cape was worse.

Enough said, south is was, back to sealed roads and the turn west to Normanton.

Now Mareeba caravan site was a bit of fun. The first place they directed me to was flat, dirt and if you attempted to drive your tent pegs into the ground, a stick of dynamite was needed. We next moved onto another beautiful site right next to the loo and I think the septic tank was acting up a bit. Finally I found a patch of green next to a family of 10 kids from England on their holiday. Isn’t life just grand!

A few stats for those that just love numbers:
On 7.4.2007 at 1304hrs according to my GPS I had covered
4593 km which if we do the numbers would have me traveling across the USA.

Mareeba-Atherton-Ravenshoe-Mount Surprise-Georgetown
Getting back to turning to Normanton, first stop was Georgetown for the night. If you blinked, you passed through the town proper. Population under 200 and still leaving. Did manage to buy a pair of Chinese thongs, size 13, for $9.00 from a Vietnamese couple running the local roadhouse. Asked why a pair of cheap Chinese thongs that would cost any where else for $1.00 was so expensive. Did I ever get an education of the cost of doing business out in the outback. I bet this guy could sell the dust off the road for a profit!

Georgetown-Croydon-Blackbull-Normanton-Karumba
Next day it was onto the town of Normanton before heading north to Karumba. For the younger set, the name Karumba was a two step dance developed for Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire!

Karumbar sits right on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Me thinks that it never has had a bad sunset and is the place to be to watch the sun settle over the horizon.







Karumba-Normanton-Burke & Wills Roadhouse-Gregory Downs-Lawn Hill National Park-Adels Grove
Karumba it was for 2 days before moving south to Lawn Hill National Park. The dirt road from Gregory Downs to Adels Grove is in good shape and riding at 100km/ph was a breeze. Staying at Adels Grove was a great, had fuel and definitely rated 4 stars for the food, facilities and staff. While at Adels Grove I made a trip to Riversleigh fossil fauna site. I think it is listed as a World Heritage site.




Adels Grove-Riversleigh-Flora-Mount Isa
From Adels it was south on the dirt road, bloody rough and rocky for the first 20km, but just going via the dirt road saved me over 220km in travel. Eventually Mount Isa on the horizon. Mount Isa is the prime example of a mining town; large, noisy and dusty. Mount Isa it is until I leave tomorrow for Cape Crawford, Northern Territory and a time deference of 30 minutes.

Notes: Temps are around 20 during the day but once the sun is over the horizon.....talk about getting the woolies out.

The beamer has a front fork seal going bad so this will have to be addressed in Darwin.

Tasmania was going to be the place to be for September but from what all I hear it will be cold, cold, and damn cold. Thoughts are now running to leaving the bike in Melbourne and return in January.