On a bright Tuesday morning, after packing up our tents and loading the bicycles, we headed out for the last push north. It had been a few weeks since we’d ridden the bikes for any length of time, what with our island-hopping and making a base at Bamaga. The lack of practice certainly showed as we wobbled down the first 100 metres of road. We were soon into the swing of things, though, and the kilometres of pavement were soon greedily chewed up by our bicycles. That was until I got a flat tyre, about 15 kilometres into a 34 kilometre trip.
At this point I’d just like to clarify something. Yes – this was my 14th flat tyre. Yes – Chris has only had one flat tyre and, yes, that was back in Townsville. But in my defence I don’t like to go slow downhill. Some members of the Cycling Scientists, who shall remain unnamed (suffice to say, not me), illogically think uphills should be done at full-speed, and downhills should be taken at a leisurely ‘time to smell the daisies’ pace.
I think downhills should be experienced in their full glory – flat chat, wide-eyed and with a stupid grin. Tackling downhills in this manner makes sharp, tube-busting rocks unavoidable. Granted, I had ever-so-slightly-more flat tyres than Chris, but that just means now I’m the fastest tyre changer in the north. Besides, Chris has busted 7 of his water bottles by somehow managing to run over them all the time?!?
Anyway, another flat tyre down and we were back in business. Time to bounce over the corrugations, tackle a few hills, and pedal through some spectacular rainforest. And neither of us could help thinking back on the corrugations of Battle Camp Road, or the hills of the Bloomfield Track, or the Daintree Rainforest. It was an odd experience of looking back and pedalling forward.
Before we knew it, there we were – on one of the most beautiful beaches in the north. But not quite the tip. Turns out that involves rock-hopping over a headland for about 500 metres. Fortunately the tide was out, so we could circumvent the rock-hopping stage and head straight for the top.
You’d think after all this time we’d have been eager to reach the tip as quick as possible. Instead we found ourselves dawdling, walking the beach at a leisurely pace, taking photos and video, and admiring the play of light on the wet sand and mangrove trunks. We were reluctant to reach the end of our incredible adventure. As we neared the top a green turtle poked its head up from the waves as if to greet us at the end. And then it happened - the track finally ran out.
We’re acutely aware that we couldn’t have made it this far without the generous support of a lot of people:
Thankyou to Elena and the Sidney Myer Fund for your generosity and faith in our project.
Thankyou to the Australian Geographic Society for helping us live out this dream of an adventure.
Thankyou to Allen Rooney and any Rooney that ever lived and ever
will – our next project is to start up a ‘I wanna be a Rooney’ society,
because everyone should aspire to have the kindness of you guys.
Thankyou to Questacon for the incredible training that saw us through it all.
Thankyou to Brunton, White Mountain, Ground Effect, Robyn at the Canberra Environment and Resource Sustainability Centre, Sue Stocklemeyer and Mike Gore at the Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Chefsway, All Safe Energy Efficient Products, Kudasai, Barrier Aviation, Sea Swift and all those caravan parks and camping grounds that helped us out.
Thankyou to all those people that so kindly offered us a drink or a meal, including the ‘Lady from Weipa’ who gave us the Pepsi Max. We made up a song about you…and I got it stuck in my head for three weeks.
Thankyou to all the schools that hosted us – we had a great time sharing our journey with you all.
Thankyou to all the towns and communities we visited.
Thankyou to our friends and families and to all who visited the website.
One last thing – the winner of the ‘Guess the Kilometres Competition’ is grade 5 from Lockhart River State School with a guess of 9 000 kilometres. And thankyou for being the one and only entrant – hence why 9 000 was closest to the 4 994.2 kilometres we actually rode. Guess no-one wanted Chris’s socks, a packet of lentils or my melted plate?
Signing out –
Danene and Chris
Cycling Scientists
