At 7:30AM we were rolling across the rocky parking area at Musgrave Telegraph Station and heading into Lakefield National Park. We chose this route for three reasons. First: the circus would probably take the main route South, and as fun as the group was, we didn't need the traffic; Second: because we had heard that Lakefield was beautiful and: Third, because we vividly remember the corrugations, sand and general mayhem, that the stretch of Peninsula Development Road we'd be avoiding, had brought us on the trip North.

Absolutely spectacular riding today! We traveled through some fabulous countryside, amazing enough, each half hour the landscape changed. At one point I would not have been surprised if a giraffe walked across the gravel road! We could have been in Africa, or at least what I think Africa looks like! Many macropods were out and about, always a pleasure to see, sometimes a worry… one even jumped between Kev and I…cheeky! We rode past beautiful lilly pod covered billabongs, over very rocky semi dried up river beds, through grasslands covered with termite mounds and past lush tropical pockets of forest. We disturbed flocks of busy gallahs, rode under swirling kites and screechy sulfur crested cockys, rode over tiger snakes…sorry, Mr. Snake, and then past a single lone donkey waiting outside a tent. We scattered wild horses, bothered grazing stock. We had been standing on the bikes since we hit the dirt 11 days earlier, and especially through dust pits, bull dust, marble like gravely sections and sandy "Oh Sh!t" sections. We dodged rocks and boulders, and then finally we hit our last water crossing for our trip up the cape…Talk about a fabulous finale!

An hour or so later we were on bitumen and we could not have been more than 10 kms in when I radioed Kev and said…"You're not going to believe this but I already miss the trail…am I crazy?" "Nah", Kev replied, "I was just thinking the very same thing!" The bitumen feels comfortable, squishy…Oh yeah we have to air up…ha ha ha. O.K., we aired up and the bitumen felt hard, sticky and precise. We were riding through some amazing countryside…the road twisted and turned though the Queensland rainforest and we are once again mesmerized by the beauty and forgot about the dirt. Soon we will be in Port Douglas, it was an amazing trip to "the Tip", one that I will never forget!!! Although next time, if there is a next time…Phe Phe is being fitted with knobbys!…watch out!