I reckon the story is getting there. The Croc Run itself is great and the flaming wheelie bin races outside the pub after are hysterical but the real fun is getting there (and home).
The road to Cook Town then was all dirt, dust and hard work.
I think the stories from ADB sowed the seed for me in the early '80's. It took until 1994 for me to get there. Three mates including DG26 all brought Honda Dominators to ride around Australia. They left 6 weeks before us. Bill Pengilly from Penrith and myself drove from Sydney to Townsville and parked my ute at a relatives place. Bill riding a 1983 IT250 and me on an XR600.
Met the others at Mareeba and headed North the next day. On the tar Bill (67 at the time) was only good for 80km/h and we all thought that Cook Town was going to be a week to get there. Once we hit the dirt he was happy to sit on 100 plus.
Young Bill and always a gentlemen.
1994 there were only about 18 entrants. Pretty sad really. XR600’s aren’t the toy to play in the mud with! Day one was pretty flat so to make it interesting the FNQ boys cut a track that took you over 10k’s of fallen trees (over a 100 of them easy) and 5k’s of the marbles they mine to make aluminum. Day two was just mud, vines and mud. Great stuff for light bikes not big tanked XR’s!
The trip north to the tip was the 5 of us, a bloke we met in the caravan park riding a GS800 BMW and 3 locals. One 4wd with our gear, food and petrol, the other towing a bloody great petrol powered fridge full of beer. 5 day trip to tip from Weipa to Weipa cost us $300 plus beers drunk. Great value really.
We left the mates in Weipa after they got 6 weeks work there and traveled south with the BMW. There were a lot of funny stories from this trip, but one of the last ones was about 10k’s from the car in Townsville at a set of traffic lights Bill was easing away very carefully. The IT was struggling to go forward. It only had one tooth left on the front sprocket! Almost 4000k’s on that front sprocket and Bill was still smiling while he tighten the chain that last little bit.
We found the Bridge after Don drown his bike in the near by creek and tried to convince us it only 12" deep!
Don packed with everything!
I'd do it all again tomorrow if I could!
Peter B
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