Round Australia By Motorbike: Ayr

Pouring rain and wind and the sound of the waves during the night and a beautiful almost clear morning. Absolutely stunning waking with the sea at your front door step, lucky there was no crocodile there. The Curlew birds are roudy little buggers in the night wondering around the park.

Headed back to the Bike Shop in Cairns to pick up Scott's new Air Hawke seat then headed south. We dressed for rain this morning as the forecast along the coast was for showers and the clouds were all around. Had some quite heavy rain, but it is so warm.

We are riding down through sugar cane, sugar cane sugar cane and more sugar cane, oh and there is some bananas and pineapples and a little bit of cattle farming. Stopped at a little town called Crawford and you could see the devastation of the last cyclone, lots of drift wood on the beaches and in the sea, houses that looked like they had been ruined, then further on banana farms that appear to be abandoned, forest that has been windblown.

Rode into Townsville and up onto Castle Hill which is a 3km twisty road to a 360 degree lookout of the city and surrounds. It is chokker with runners, walkers, cyclists, tourists going up and down, people flying model aeroplanes.

Left Townsville after a fuel up and was hot and sunny. Could see blue sky and a patch of black sky, well the road direction took us directly into the path of the rain cloud and it pelted down, then to top it off we had a stop light at some roadwork, so got pretty soaked.

Carried on south and have stopped in a very busy little town called Ayr, most of the accommodation is booked out because there are races on today, but we found a motel that also cooked us a lovely dinner.