Cairns long day · Component around Cowley

404 km from Cairns

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Why this ride

404 km from Cairns City to Cairns City, about 6 h 58 of riding. On the way it passes Component around Hugh Nelson Range, Component around Malaan, Component around Moresby Range and Component around Cowley. The highest point is about 900 m. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.

Roadbook

1. Cairns start

   Cairns sits in the tropical far north of Queensland, with the Coral Sea on one side and a wall of rainforest mountains on the other, and the whole town is organised around the idea of being a launch pad. Boats leave daily for the Great Barrier Reef, small planes head for Cape York, and the road north runs up to the Daintree, where the oldest rainforest on earth meets the beach. The town was founded in the 1870s as a port for the goldfields at Hodgkinson River and later became a sugar and tourism centre. It is not especially pretty in the old-town sense, but the Esplanade, with its saltwater lagoon, mudflats full of waders and cheerful backpackers, has a relaxed tropical air.

   The reason a rider starts here is the Tablelands. From Cairns you climb the Kuranda Range, or take the Gillies Highway, which twists up through some hundreds of bends in a few kilometres of forest, and then reach the cool, dairy-farm plateau around Atherton, with crater lakes, waterfalls and volcanic soil. It is tremendous motorcycle country, with smooth asphalt, good camber and generally respectful traffic, and the contrast between sweaty coast and cool upland is part of the pleasure. Look out for cassowaries on the roads in the rainforest, which are big, dangerous birds, and for tour buses on the narrow bends.

   The wet season, roughly December to April, brings humidity, cyclones and flooded roads, and the stingers, box jellyfish, make swimming in the sea inadvisable then. From May to October the weather is dry and mild, which is the ideal riding time. Mornings are the freshest and clearest, and the mountains can be shrouded in cloud by afternoon.

   Everything is easy in Cairns, from fuel stations to repair shops, hotels and restaurants. The pedestrian-friendly night markets and the Rusty's Markets in the daytime sell fruit like mangosteen, rambutan and custard apples, and there is good seafood, including barramundi and Moreton Bay bugs. Once you leave town the stations thin out in the hills, but Kuranda, Mareeba and Atherton all have fuel, so just keep an eye on the gauge. Pack a rain jacket whatever the forecast, and sunscreen for the lowlands.

2. Component around Hugh Nelson Range sight

   The Atherton Tableland is the bit of tropical Queensland that feels like it has wandered in from somewhere cooler. At seven or eight hundred metres above the sea, the plateau behind Cairns has red volcanic soil, dairy pastures, crater lakes and patches of rainforest that cling to the ridges.

   The riding up here is some of the best in north Queensland. The Kennedy Highway runs south from Atherton toward Ravenshoe through rolling farmland and timbered hills, while the back roads toward Malanda and Millaa Millaa wind between pastures and rainforest with lovely flowing corners. Surfaces vary from smooth to patched, and in the wet season you will meet mud washed across the road from farm tracks. Mist often hangs in the valleys early in the morning and burns off by mid-morning, leaving a clear, cool day that is a gift after the steamy coast.

   Atherton, about eighteen kilometres away, is the main town with fuel, supermarkets and a decent spread of cafés. Malanda is smaller and known for its dairy industry and its waterfall pool, which is a popular cool-off spot. Ravenshoe, to the south, likes to claim the highest pub in Queensland and is a fine place for a cold drink and a look at the old timber country around it.

   This is tree-kangaroo country. Lumholtz's tree kangaroos live in the rainforest remnants of the Tablelands, and if you are very lucky and very patient you may see one hunched in a tree near a roadside reserve. The volcanic history is everywhere: crater lakes like Eacham and Barrine sit in old eruption craters to the north-east, and the soil that feeds all those cows came out of the ground as ash.

   Go between May and September for the clearest weather, and pack a warm layer, since mornings up here can be genuinely chilly. In the wet, rain arrives in long soaking sessions. Either way, it is a place that reminds you how varied Australia can be in a single morning's ride.

3. Component around Malaan sight

   Up on the Atherton Tableland, behind Cairns in far north Queensland, the land rises from the hot coastal plain to a cooler plateau of volcanic soil, rolling farmland and patches of dense rainforest. Near Ravenshoe, which claims to be the highest town in Queensland, the forest around Malaan is one of the components of the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage site, a long strip of tropical rainforest along the coast and the Great Dividing Range that contains some of the oldest continuously surviving rainforest on Earth. The forests are home to tree kangaroos, possums, rare frogs and birds, and, in the lowlands, the cassowary, a large flightless bird with a bony crest that is best admired from a distance.

   The tableland is a land of waterfalls. Millstream Falls, near Ravenshoe, is one of the widest single-drop waterfalls in Australia, especially impressive after the wet season, and the famous waterfall circuit around Millaa Millaa takes in several more, cascading over basalt into pools surrounded by ferns. The volcanic lakes, Lake Eacham and Lake Barrine, are great places for a swim in clear, cool water, and the giant curtain fig tree near Yungaburra, with its roots hanging like a curtain, is a sight not to be missed.

   The riding is some of the best in Queensland. The Palmerston Highway descends from Millaa Millaa through the rainforest of Wooroonooran National Park towards Innisfail on the coast, with plenty of bends, and the Gillies Range Road from Gordonvale to Yungaburra climbs hundreds of metres in a long, tight sequence of curves, one of the most famous motorcycle roads in the region. The Kennedy Highway links Ravenshoe with Atherton and Mareeba. Roads can be slippery in the wet season, roughly December to April, and cattle and wildlife, including wallabies, can appear at any time.

   Ravenshoe has fuel and a few shops and pubs, and Atherton, the main town of the tableland, has everything you need. Try the local produce, which is excellent: tropical fruit, coffee grown on the tableland, cheese from the dairy farms around Malanda, and avocados. The tableland can be surprisingly cool in winter, so bring a warm layer for the evenings.

4. Component around Moresby Range sight

   Innisfail had to rebuild itself after a cyclone flattened much of the town in 1918, and it chose to do so in the latest style. As a result, this sugar town on the Johnstone River has one of the finest collections of Art Deco buildings in Australia, with colourful façades, geometric patterns and elegant shopfronts lining the main streets. Just to the east, the Moresby Range runs down to the coast in a band of steep, rainforest-covered hills, part of the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage area, one of the oldest continuously surviving tropical rainforests on earth.

   The range shelters small bays and beaches, including Etty Bay, a quiet cove where cassowaries are known to wander out of the forest onto the sand, and Flying Fish Point, at the mouth of the river, with its fishing boats and views over the sea. The rainforest is dense, humid and full of life, with tree ferns, palms, vines and the calls of birds you will rarely see.

   Inland, Paronella Park at Mena Creek is a striking oddity: a Spanish-style castle and gardens built by a Catalan immigrant, José Paronella, in the 1930s, now partly overgrown by the rainforest, with a waterfall, tunnels and moss-covered stairways. It is one of the most unusual attractions in north Queensland.

   The riding around Innisfail is a mix of the busy Bruce Highway, which runs north and south through cane fields, and quieter roads into the hills and along the coast, where the corners come thick and the surfaces can be damp, leafy and slippery. Traffic includes cane trains crossing the road during the crushing season, roughly June to November, so watch for the warning lights. Rain is frequent, especially in the wet season from December to April, when downpours can flood roads quickly.

   Innisfail has fuel, supermarkets, cafés and pubs, and the town has a strong Italian heritage from the migrants who came to work in the cane fields, so a good coffee and a plate of pasta are easy to find. Come in the dry season, from May to October, when the weather is warm and clear. Ride out along the river to Flying Fish Point in the late afternoon, and watch the light fade over the sea and the green hills of the range.

5. Component around Cowley turn

   The Wet Tropics of Queensland are a long, narrow strip of rainforest between Townsville and Cooktown, and they hold the oldest continuously surviving tropical rainforest on earth, some of it unchanged for well over a hundred million years. The World Heritage listing, from 1988, covers not one block but a patchwork of national parks and other protected land, which is why the label calls this a component around Cowley. Here, the mountains run down almost to the sea, and on the flat, fertile coastal plain around Innisfail, sugar cane and banana plantations stand beside beaches, mangroves and remnants of forest.

   Nature here is strange and abundant. The southern cassowary, a huge flightless bird with a blue neck and a bony casque on its head, lives in the lowland forest and is one of the most dangerous birds in the world if provoked, so you should never approach one. It is also one of the most important seed dispersers in the forest. Tree kangaroos, musky rat kangaroos, pythons and thousands of insect species share the canopy, and the estuaries hold saltwater crocodiles, so check signs before swimming. From November to May, box jellyfish make the sea unsafe, and the sea is best left to the tourists with stinger suits.

   The riding is on the Bruce Highway and the quieter coastal roads, which run through cane fields, over rivers and along the foot of the mountains. It is long, flat and open, with flowing bends in places, and sometimes it narrows into green tunnels where the rainforest closes over the road. The area has been hit by cyclones, including Larry in 2006 and Yasi in 2011, and the forest shows the scars of both. The best season is the dry winter, from May to October, when the days are warm and clear. In the wet season, heavy rain and flooding can cut the roads.

   Innisfail, fifteen kilometres away, is a town with fuel, a bakery and pubs, and a relaxed tropical atmosphere. Further away, the banana and sugar towns have little. Carry water, sunscreen and insect repellent, and slow down at dusk when wildlife is on the move. Fruit stalls along the road sell mangoes, bananas and exotic fruit in season.

6. back through Component around Moresby Range stop

   back through Component around Moresby Range comes up 253 km in.

7. back through Component around Malaan stop
8. back through Component around Hugh Nelson Range stop

   back through Component around Hugh Nelson Range, late in the day.

9. Cairns finish

   The route ends here after 404 km.

Where this sits

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