Cairns to Darwin 2017- follow us | Straggling Stu – Slow bicycle trips across Australia

Cairns to Darwin – our most likely route but subject to change due to floods, fire, drought and enemy action

Use this link to find us on a map updated every 10-30 mins depending on how we feel.(the page often stalls when loading; reload/refresh the page to complete opening the map)

The link will be active from 18 June 2016 when we leave Cairns.

We will follow the Savannah Way across the bottom of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The map below shows the planned route, the loops are options to side track to national parks.

We will be following what was the original droving route from Queensland to the Kimberley in Western Australia. The current main highway is further south but lacks significant natural surface water.

The well-watered coastal route exposes drovers, and now bike riders, to diseases including dengue fever, malaria, encephalitis and Ross River fever. Large estuarine crocodiles that could easily take man, horse or bullock add interest to the creek crossings.

Our route will be about half on bitumen (tarmac) with the rest a reasonable gravel road. Hopefully the dirt sections will have been graded since the ‘wet’ season but not yet become badly corrugated by traffic. Most of the roads are a single lane so we will have to head bush when road trains (three trailer tracktor trailers) pass us.

The joy of slow travel by bicycle