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.
A 345 km round trip from Gordonvale - roughly 6 h 13 in the saddle. The stops in between: Component around Lake Barrine, Component around Hugh Nelson Range, Component around Curtain Fig and Component around Malaan. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
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 26 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.
Inland from the cane fields south of Cairns, the land rears up into a wall of rainforest so dense that the ridgelines seem to steam after every shower. Gordonvale lies about fourteen kilometres to the north, Babinda a little further south, and the tableland town of Yungaburra up over the range to the west.
Read the complete Main component write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Main component is where the day begins. Next is Component around Lake Barrine.
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 comes up about 44 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 94 km into the recorded legs you reach Component around Hugh Nelson Range. Next is Component around Curtain Fig.
A single tree, but what a tree. The Curtain Fig near Yungaburra, on the Atherton Tablelands of tropical north Queensland, is a strangler fig that started life as a seed dropped by a bird high in the canopy of another tree. Its roots grew down to the ground, wrapping and eventually killing the host, which then fell against a neighbour, leaving the fig at an angle. The roots kept dropping down from the tilted trunk, creating a hanging curtain of aerial roots that reaches the forest floor. A boardwalk lets you walk around it, and it is one of the most photographed trees in Australia.
Read the complete Component around Curtain Fig write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Component around Curtain Fig, about halfway. 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.
Component around Malaan sits at 128 km, about halfway. Next is back through Component around Curtain Fig.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Component around Curtain Fig write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Component around Curtain Fig comes up about 221 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 263 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Component around Hugh Nelson Range. Next is back through 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.
back through Component around Lake Barrine, late in the day. Next is Main component.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Main component write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 345 km.
Main component → Component around Lake Barrine is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Component around Lake Barrine → Component around Hugh Nelson Range is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Component around Hugh Nelson Range → Component around Curtain Fig is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Component around Curtain Fig → Component around Malaan is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Component around Malaan → back through Component around Curtain Fig is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Component around Curtain Fig → back through Component around Hugh Nelson Range is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Component around Hugh Nelson Range → back through Component around Lake Barrine is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Component around Lake Barrine → Main component is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.