CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
306 km from Yungaburra to Yungaburra, about 4 h 32 of riding. The stops in between: Component around Hugh Nelson Range, Component around Malaan, Component around Moresby Range and back through Component around Malaan. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It strings together lakeside roads.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 35 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go — slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
For about 33 km this is Atherton Tablelands Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Lake Barrine fills a volcanic crater on the Atherton Tablelands, a deep round lake fringed by dense rainforest, formed by a violent volcanic explosion many thousands of years ago when rising magma met groundwater. Its sister lake, Lake Eacham, lies a few kilometres away, and both are part of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Site. The water is clear and deep, and the rainforest around it is home to some remarkable creatures: Lumholtz's tree kangaroos, musky rat-kangaroos, Boyd's forest dragons and many birds.
Read the complete Component around Lake Barrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Component around Lake Barrine is where the day begins. Next is Component around Hugh Nelson Range.
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.
Read the complete Component around Hugh Nelson Range write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Component around Hugh Nelson Range comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Component around Malaan.
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.
Read the complete Component around Malaan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 70 km into the recorded legs you reach Component around Malaan. Next is Component around Moresby Range.
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.
Read the complete Component around Moresby Range write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Component around Moresby Range, about halfway. Next is back through Component around Malaan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Component around Malaan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Component around Malaan sits at 179 km, about halfway. Next is back through Component around Hugh Nelson Range.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Component around Hugh Nelson Range write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Component around Hugh Nelson Range comes up about 269 km into the recorded legs. Next is Component around Lake Barrine.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Component around Lake Barrine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Component around Lake Barrine closes the day.
Component around Lake Barrine → Component around Hugh Nelson Range is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Component around Hugh Nelson Range → Component around Malaan is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Component around Malaan → Component around Moresby Range is 82 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Component around Moresby Range → back through Component around Malaan is 84 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Component around Malaan → back through Component around Hugh Nelson Range is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Component around Hugh Nelson Range → Component around Lake Barrine is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.