QLD Moto Odyssey
There’s no reception in Kalpowar so the night’s entertainment was some good ol’ conversation. We were flogged from a day of singletrail action, so we hit the hay early and woke to a frosty morning and a few nosey horses near our campsite.
We rolled up the swags and headed north for Kroombit Tops, which is about 2-3 hours drive. Kroombit Tops is like one big plateau that sits 800-900m above sea level and offers epic views back across the national park. To get there we took a gnarly four-wheel-drive track through a series of farms.
It’s not the signposted way to Kroombit tops but as Mike from Gladstone told us the regular way is a trap for young players, and twice as long.
Kroombit Tops is most well known for Beautiful Betsy, the B-24D Bomber wreck. Dan, our Gladstone guide and ADB reader informed us that it went down shortly after the end of WWII, carrying a bunch of returned services men and women. The bomber wasn’t found until the ‘90s when it was discovered in a bush fire. The crash site is pretty well intact and gives you an idea of what kind of damage an impact at that speed can do.
We left Kroombit Tops, said goodbye to Dan, Aaron and Mike and headed for Mackay to meet up with Lincoln Hinds and a bunch of crazy motocross locals. Linc had a bonfire roaring and a bunch of beers on ice for our arrival at about 8:30, such is the hospitality of most in the dirtbike industry. After a few ales and entertaining tales of Linc’s days in the army we hit the sack.
We woke in the morning to a screaming Suzuki RM-Z450 as Kye, Linc’s son, started cutting laps on their private track at the back of Linc’s property.
In the confusion of nightfall we’d parked ourselves in the middle of their track! Before long all the local crew had turned up, including the
neighbour who was more than happy to hear a dirtbike being valved bounced at 6:30am, strange I know but true!
For several hours the likes of Carl Goss, Georgia Murray, Reece Mau, Marcus Swift and Alex Mau, cut laps on Linc’s track. We found a pile of mulch and one after the other the boys had a crack at landing their own covershot, with the session rendering some gold, but they’ll have to wait to find out who made the cut for the feature.
We then headed over to a neighbouring property for some more backyard motocross action. The dirtbike communities in rural Qld seem very social and love to see their own private tracks being used by local grommets. This second track was a large one with plenty of big step downs, doubles and sandy berms. It wasn’t really WR250F territory so it gave me a good opportunity to hop off the bike and pick up the camera, to capture some of the crazy action these kids were throwing down.
As the clock struck midday we began to head back to Linc’s place to pack up and head off to Townsville – our next riding destination. We picked up a servo kebab, wound down the windows as we were in desperate need of a shower, and pointed the LandCruiser north for Townsville. We were booked in at a powered site and after five days since it was last plugged into a power source, the Patriot Camper finally needed some juice. More on that tomorrow…
