Cairns, as we all know by now, has been the world’s centre of mountain biking again and again. We headed here to see if we could take that world with us on the road, packing our bikes, bags, snacks and pyjamas into a four-berth campervan for a week-long road trip in search of North Queensland’s finest trails on the Great Tropical Road Trip (With Bikes)

Day one – Smithfield and Wangetti

It’s a shaky start when we pull out of the Britz hire centre outside of Cairns. On our first sortie in the campervan, which we give the highly original nickname ‘Britzy’, we take up four parking spots at the Smithfield shopping centre and need at least two people and three minutes for a blindspot check and lane change. It’s big enough for a reversing camera and thankfully one is fitted. We’re lucky, then, that our first stop is just a few minutes’ drive from our start point. The Smithfield trails at James Cook University, are soon-to-be home of the World Champs for the second time. We choose an easy cross-country style loop, hoping to keep our bodies intact for the rest of the journey, and pile back into our mobile home for the next leg, eager to test Britzy on the great open road.

We’re heading out on a gigantic loop, up north to Port Douglas, then west and south to Atherton, Ravenshoe, and finally to the coast near Innisfail before returning to Cairns. Our mission is threefold: to enjoy Queensland’s finest and best-known trails; to explore some of her newest riding; and to spot a crocodile.

It’s only an hour’s drive to Port Douglas and barely midday when we pull off the Captain Cook Highway at the abandoned croc farm opposite Wangetti beach. With overgrown, collapsing barbed-wire fences and washed-out concrete buildings, complete with faded interpretative signage, it’s the perfect place to shoot a budget zombie apocalypse film and emits a strange reptilian smell. Although we’ve been assured that ‘nah you won’t find any crocs in that creek’ we can’t help but notice that the signs across the road, and indeed all the way up the Captain Cook Highway, would seem to indicate otherwise.

We kit up and head up the steep four-wheel drive track that takes us away from the coast, and the apocalyptic croc farm, and into the old timber reserve beyond. It’s hot and humid, but after riding over undulating fire road for several minutes the tree cover becomes lusher, denser, and before long we emerge at Hartley’s falls, a gorgeous waterhole surrounded by birdcalls and dragonflies, and a log shaped like a crocodile, which we avoid anyway. We carry on a few more kilometres before we emerge at Flat Rock Falls, with clear pools etched into rock fed by water running off the tablelands to the west. We cool off our feet and freshen up for the ride back, enjoying views over the azure coastline before the final descent.

That afternoon we pull into the relative luxury of the BIG4 Port Douglas, where we admit we’re a little intimidated by the cords, pipes, pumps, and switches garnishing Britzy’s sides, and head for the shower block instead of hooking up the water. We do give cooking a try. Britzy’s equipped with a tiny fridge, tiny microwave, tiny stove, tiny sink, and normal-sized pots and pans. We turn the gas on, as well as the miniature exhaust fan, and while bench space is at a premium, there’s no problem whipping up a stir fry for two. We eat outside at the folding camp table and chairs that come stowed in the campervan’s rear hatch, and enjoy the company of sandflies and midges, who are stoically undeterred by our use of several citronella candles (provided) and lashings of bug repellent (our own). While we eat we listen to strange tropical birds celebrating the rapid tropical sunset, backed by the distant lapping of gentle ocean waves.

The only thing that’s left to do is make the bed, a daily task achieved by shifting our bikes outside where we lock them up, removing the ‘dining table’ from the rear of the cabin, unfolding timber planks over the seats to make a solid base, then covering the planks with cushions and linen. The table folds away and we stow it above the driver’s seat, never to use it again.

Day Two – The Great Barrier Reef

We may be on a mountain biking odyssey but nobody leaves TNQ without visiting the Great Barrier Reef. Today we’re heading out to sea with tour operators Calypso Reef Cruises.

It’s about an hour-and-a-half voyage from Port Douglas to the first of the three reef stops we’ll make to snorkel or dive, so I’ve brought my laptop to catch up on work. Your Editor spends some time reading on the laptop and consequently gets seasick. The rest of his snorkelling trip is spent lying under his towel on the front of the boat cycling through various shades of green while I get out and enjoy the water. Although it’s warm, about 25 degrees, I opt for a spring wetsuit because after bobbing around for fifteen minutes or so I’m feeling hypothermic. I also appropriate not one but two pool noodles to help me stay afloat after the tasty lunch served on board the boat.

Down below it’s magnificent. Teeming with life, alive with colour, the reef delivers everything it’s ever promised to be. Corals of a hundred pastel shades wave in the currents and eddies, while a carnival of fish of every variety swim to and fro, going about their business, unfazed by gigantic beige-coloured humans blocking out their sun. The crew show us a giant clam, take our photos, and swim us through coral gardens to point out the behavioural tics of different species of fish.

It’s a big day, and while Your Editor returns to a normal fleshy colour when we reach shore, and even manages dinner that evening, we’re keen to get back to dry-land activities.

Day three – Atherton

It seems too soon to leave a resort town like Port Douglas, and there’s plenty more we could explore, like taking a tour of the Bump Track – day or night – with Bike and Hike Tours. But we’re packing the campervan and back on the Captain Cook Highway before the sun’s been up for long. We head north, towards Mossman, before turning south-west on the Mossman-Mt Molloy road, up the winding hill towards the tablelands, one of Queensland’s most fertile regions, a patchwork of tropical fruit orchards, sugar cane, and rainforest.

While Google Maps has estimated it will take us an hour-and-a-half to get to Atherton, Britzy’s not your standard family sedan or soft-roader. Her shaking cutlery, spontaneously opening cupboards and lumbering cornering slows us down somewhat, and on the steeper, curvier roads we’re forced to pull over every now and then to let local drivers pass. We arrive in two hours at the bike-obsessed town and head straight for the trails. There’s lately been quite some development at Atherton, and the whole park has about 90km of purpose built mountain bike trail, with a new trail head that starts right in town.

We’re taken riding by Pete, who helps look after the park in his spare time. He has given up his morning to fuel us with hotcakes and take us riding. While the park opened in 2013, Pete is keen to show us the recent additions, like the long climb Stairway to Heaven, the aptly named Cliff Hanger, and Topdeck, which takes you to the top of the mountain.

We stop for the view over town and Pete points out where you can turn off into Wahoo, a descending trail to match Ricochet, a popular descending trail in the park. That’s not for us, as we climb on to the top, and onto the recently opened Yahoo Wahoo – the whole descent from top to bottom. Unlike Ricochet, the corners are a little more open, and it’s blindingly fast. Along with Drop Zone, another very “dark blue” trail, the park has really got terrain for all riders.

That afternoon we ease Britzy back onto the road and head out for a spot of sightseeing, taking in the magnificent Curtain Tree Fig, one of the largest trees in North Queensland, and Lake Eacham, the near perfectly-round volcanic lake fed by rainfall and populated by endangered freshwater fish, where we enjoy a peaceful afternoon swim.

After a coffee in the gorgeous town of Yungaburra, we’re back at another BIG4, this one the famous Atherton Woodlands Tourist Park, which boasts a bike cleaning station complete with Park Tools and workstand. We clean the bikes up and hook Britzy up to the mains power, which allows us to run the air conditioning, and plan tomorrow’s trip.

Day Four – Ravenshoe and the Misty Mountains

Sitting 960m above sea level, Ravenshoe is Queensland’s highest town. It was a centre for the timber industry until 1987, when 900,000 surrounding acres of rainforest was World Heritage listed. Although great for the rainforest, the loss of the timber industry was not so great for the area, which these days has a population of several hundred. Ravenshoe (pronounced ravens-hoe. Don’t let the locals hear you say raven-shoe) has little in the way of tourism, but a weekly heritage steam train, bushwalking, and some hidden military history still brings visitors, mostly grey nomads, through town.

Now, old timber trails in the Misty Mountains region just east of the town are being opened to bikes in the hope that some of the MTB stardust sprinkled all over Atherton just 45 minutes up the Kennedy Highway also lands here. We’re some of the first tourists ever to try them out. First we head to the Cardwell Range trailhead a short roll from town which, if you ride out and back, is a beautiful 30km roll on an old timber grading with dense rainforest on either side. In theory at least, it’s possible to join this trail with Cannabullen Creek Track and dirt roads that will take you all the way east to the other side of the park (a trip that could take two days – there are plenty of camp grounds on the way).

We discover the next day, however, that what looks good in theory doesn’t always work in practice. After a night at the historic Railway Reserve, run by volunteers, we try to loop through the Koolmoon Creek Track via the Cannabullen Creek Track and back through to Cardwell Range Track, which was great yesterday, but after a gentle ride down to Walters Waterhole camping area and a quick dip, the Koolmoon Creek Track becomes so overgrown that it’s simply impassable and impossible to link up to Cannabullen Creek Track further in, and which we never manage to see. The rainforest is so dense that we think inexperienced bushwalkers would have a hard time of it, particularly with the stinging trees we spotted dangerously close to what was discernible as the path. After 45 minutes lugging our bikes through dense jumbles of vines and over fallen logs, we decide to call it a day, and head home the way we came, pack up Britzy, and take off for our next adventure. With a bit of work these Tully Falls National Park trails could be magnificent, and would bring riders closer to World Heritage rainforest than any other trails we know. Unfortunately, at the moment, you’ll need to get a bit too close.

We motor through another historic timber town, Millaa Millaa, and roll onto the Palmerston Highway, which takes us to our first ‘bush’ camping experience with Britzy at the Henrietta Creek camping area, which boasts a gorgeous swimming hole, a composting toilet, and not much else. We’re a bit disappointed that, while we have managed to reverse Britzy into a dense bit of real jungle, the Palmerston Highway is still within earshot and favoured by trucks, and no number of cicadas can drown out the whining of distant traffic. Furthermore, I discover that Britzy’s 80 litre water tank is not, in fact, enough for giving my hair a proper wash, and Your Editor has to make do with what’s left in his Camelbak for his shower that night, while my Camelbak is used for drinking water until we discover a tap the next morning. We don’t see a cassowary as hoped, but a bandicoot does scatter the contents of our rubbish bag.

Day Five – Gorrell Track and Cowley Beach

Our confidence has grown, and the next morning we take ungainly Britzy on her first off-road experience, and manage to stay upright. There’s a beautiful waterhole (also popular with march flies) at the Gorrell trailhead, and we head into another old rainforest road, this one well-serviced, for a few hours, enjoying a relaxing ride under towering tree ferns, up gentle climbs, and down winding descents, until we decide it’s time to head back. The track itself traverses Tully Gorge National Park for another 20 kilometres, emerging on dirt roads on its eastern side.

There’s only one thing missing from our Great Tropical Road Trip (With Bikes), and that’s a trip to the beach. While Mission Beach is not too far a drive to the south, and has decent coastal and beach mountain biking on offer, we decide to choose something quieter, and pick the remotest beach we can discern from a dog-eared touring and caravanning guide we discover in the glovebox.

On the Palmerston Highway we stop at fruit stalls and pick up ginger, dehydrated banana, and the best papaya we’ve ever tasted, paying into honesty boxes. We stock up on essentials at the supermarket at Innisfail, then motor on to Cowley Beach, a town that’s little more than a few timber houses and shacks with signs warning of crocs and marine stingers near the water. The caravan park is a group of buildings painted blue, a stretch of dead grass, a fish-gutting station (in peak fishing season the park’s booked out with a waiting list), bore water, friendly owners, crocodile folklore, perfect quiet, and a million-dollar view. Perfect.

Day Six – Back to Cairns

The next morning, after a walk along the beach, our trip’s all but over. On the drive north we pass more places we could have visited, with or without bikes, like Josephine Falls and the Babinda Boulders, but our flight leaves that afternoon and we’ve booked to squeeze in a trip on Cairns’ iconic Skyrail, which takes us soaring over some of the world’s oldest rainforest. We spot pygmy bats, a red-bellied black snake and, in one of the waterways below, we think, a croc, until we work out it’s really a log.

Things to do by region

Cairns

Stay: Coolwaters Holiday Park, Brinsmead

Ride: Smithfield, or up to Lake Morris

Do: Skyrail, get a budget massage at the Cairns Night Markets

Port Douglas

Stay: BIG4 Port Douglas

Ride: Wangetti, Bump track (see bikeandhiketours.com.au)

Do: Calypso Reef Cruise

Atherton

Stay: BIG4 Atherton

Ride: Atherton Mountain Bike Park

Do: Devonshire tea at Lake Barrine, visit the Curtain Tree Fig

Ravenshoe

Stay: There’s only one place in town for a campervan, and that’s the Railway Reserve, unmissable in the centre of town.

Ride: The Misty Mountains trails in Tully Gorge National Park (see main)

Do: Visit Millstream falls – the widest waterfall in Australia, take the Ravenshoe Steam Railway (every Sunday at 1:30pm).

Cowley Beach

Stay: Cowley Beach Caravan Park (www.cowleybeachcaravanpark.com.au)

Ride: On the beach at low tide

Do: As little as possible, go fishing.

For all the best trail information, head right to RideCairns.

Mountain biking by campervan

If you want to ride a few destinations and get back to nature, a campervan is the ideal choice. We enjoyed the freedom of having our home with us wherever we went, of being able to get changed at the trailhead in total privacy, and of having cooking and shower facilities at hand no matter where we were (as long as the tank was full)

Campervans are available for hire from Britz (www.britz.com.au), whose location just minutes from Cairns airport was a big advantage.

You might consider a four-berth campervan quite large for two people, but we found that storing two bikes inside while on the road used up a lot of space.

Make sure you pay attention to the demo you’ll receive when you pick up your campervan, especially on how to empty the toilet thing and greywater (you don’t want to get this wrong). Avoid using the toilet in your campervan as much as possible to make your trip more harmonious.