A morning ride in Cairns

Ever since Gary got back from the Tour de Timor (which he finished in the top half!) he's been badgering on about the next cycle tour.  So one night over a glass of wine we discussed our options.  It began with grandiose ideas of Sth America and which gradually scaled down to NZ, followed by Aust Alps and finally settling for a 3 day jaunt around the tablelands.  Perhaps the others may come to fruition one day but  with current restrictions we can only do with what we can!  So having decided on our mini tour this then prompted the need for a warm up to the mini tour, starting with a morning ride around the sights of Cairns.  We came up with a rough route based on one requirement, that it should include a stop at the French patisserie at some point.

In preparation the night before, I thought a piece of date slice and butter would be a nice treat along the way, so I got baking while Gary proceeded to load all four of his panniers with weighty odds and sods, mostly books and tea making facilities of course.  The books included a variety of subject matters which would find us well informed of solving mathematical problem or plane a door should the opportunity present itself along the way.

Come early morning we were off, minus the date slice, because, well, we had to have a bit while it was still warm from the oven and well we're just a couple of fat labs (labradors) and polished it off.  Needless to say we left without breakfast as we had plenty of fuel in the tank.

So our little trip took us out through the streets of Freshwater (spotted one or two Queenslanders Gary is going to buy for me!) and then headed out towards Crystal Cascades.  We then took a detour and found ourselves on a path meandering along Freshwater creek.

It was a glorious ride and after an hour or so we found a lovely spot to boil the billy for a cuppa.

From there it was back along the path, a little bush bashing, to pop out into a cane field and navigate our way back to the road.

We then headed up to Barron Gorge, via the very steep back streets of Redlynch which gave us a good workout to say the least.

By the time we were heading back from Barron Gorge, we had finally digested our date slice from the night before just in time to pull into the patisserie for a coffee and baguette.  Delicious, of course.  We then headed home, by this time a little hot and bothered, to come home and have a plunge in the pool!  All in all it was a lovely 3 hours or so tour of Cairns!