I got up early this morning to go and see the view from Castle Hill - which I have heard from many people is quite spectacular. I didn't quite get up to see it at sunrise (I reckon that would be awesome), but I did manage to be completely packed up camp and out of the campsite by 7:30AM and up the hill before 8.
It appears that the road up Castle Hill is used by various fitness enthusiasts, including a group who appeared to be on a training run complete with coach and weights. There were people everywhere!
After spending a few minutes chatting to the old bloke at the summit who was rather interested in my bike, I managed to get away and actually look at the view. It really is a spectacular view around the city, and the photos just don't do it justice.
I left at around 8:30AM to head to Tim's grandparents place to get back in sync with Tim. I arrived around 9:30, but not before trying a couple of times to lose control of the bike on a couple of gravelly spots on some side roads (at low speed - typically when trying to take off from standstill). I'm not sure why, but the bike is really reminding me of how heavy it is today.
After a morning tea provided by Tim's grandparents, we continued on our way towards Cairns. We stopped for a short while in Cardwell for fuel and lunch, and to admire the *ahem* view - of big trucks offloading massive boulders (which was very loud), in an effort to reconstruct part of the shoreline after damage from Cyclone Yasi.
Just short of Tully, I noticed the skyline was looking remarkably bleak. It then started to absolutely pour down. We quickly pulled off the road and hid under a shed (as it turned out, it was an Amcor factory - we got a couple of funny looks from employees while I put my wet weather gear on). Fortunately I wasn't really wet at all to speak of by the time we had gotten under cover.
The rain did not relent at all the rest of the time. By the time we arrived in Cairns, Tim was absolutely soaked (he did not put wet weather gear on over his jeans), and I was amazingly dry all things considered. The internal wet weather layer of my jacket did its job well. I managed to tip out heaps of water from my gloves / arms as I was riding along, but I stayed almost completely dry. This ruined my joke about being the "wet rider in dririder gear" but I'm quite OK with that.
We didn't want to set up tent given how miserable it was, so we instead booked into a backpackers in the city, right near the esplanade. For $98 for a twin-share dorm room for 2 nights, it really was a no-brainer.
The dorm room soon became littered with soaking wet clothing. Both our hands were a dark shade of purple (not from beating the living crap out of each other, but from the dyes in our gloves), and we were thoroughly sick of the rain. After finding some clean clothes, we headed along the esplanade for dinner and then got a relatively early night.
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