Now less than 11 deg south of the equator and 150km from PNG. As the intrepid travellers planted the NZ and Dutch flags in the top of Australia Henk turned to Mike just as Hillary turned to Tensing at the top of Everest in May 1953 and said proudly "We've knocked the bastard off".

Spent the rest of the day chilling out in +40 deg at the Cape resting bodies and repairing bikes before starting the decent tomorrow.

May 22
Cape York - Bramwell Junction 248 km
Total 14608 km
Average 503 km/day
Got through sand holes a lot better on the way back down. Only one bike dropped and stuck in sand today. Henk has never been off road before but now handling it like he was born on knoblies. (Thats tyres not knees)
May 23
Bramwell Junction - Musgrave Road House 339 km
Total 14947 km
Average 498 km
Had a Kiwi guy come up to Henk and Mike at Bramwell Junction and said "One of you must be a farmer from Otorohanga". Turns out Colin was communicating with him on a Horizons Unlimited chat room about route planning in Oz. His username is Ducatijim, he knew that we were planning a lap of Oz on Transalps in May. Ducatijim and a mate are doing an off road trip including Cape York, Arnhem Land, Kimberly's, Gibb river track, Bungle Bungles, down to Kalgoorlie, through the centre to Uluru and out to Sydney. Ducatijim describes their trip as "2 months , 2 DR 650s, 1 dream". Meeting up with Ducatijim on Cape York just goes to show that Oz might be a big country, but its a small world.
That evening Mike was happy to get to Musgrave. So happy in fact, that he started doing "donuts" in front of the Musgrave Road House to impress the locals with some Kiwi riding skills. The locals were really impressed. Turned out to be the high light of their day!!!!!!. Those that weren't outside watching the performance soon were once the sound of bending metal, cracking plastic and shrieking Mike reached their ears. Mike and bike parted company as Mike went airborne and bike bit the dust. Time to pick up the pieces and ride out of town to camp behind some gum trees again.
May 24
Musgrave Road House - Cairns 492 km
Total 15439 km
Average 498 km/day
Mike was 1st up this morning and found a Croc 100m from where the fly was stretched out to sleep under. Henk & Mike are now using liberal quantities of "Croc-off" as well as "Bug-off".
Henk and Mike are rapidly gaining celebrity status on the Cape, being recognised almost every where they go. Talk of their antics go before them. They are referred to as those 2 old guys trying to ride up Cape York on near road bikes. Aged bikers they are being called. (All sounds far to polite for Ozzie's. I'm sure Mike has moderated this bit because he knows Grace will be reading it.)
Had a couple of hours of hard packed fast road today.....................until Mike came round a corner to find Henk, who had started the day in black riding gear, standing in the middle of the road covered in red dust waving his arms around like he was ground crew waving a 747 in at the airport. The bike was all beat up lying in a heap of rocks and bull dust. Spent the next few hours removing and repairing radiator, brake levers and fairings. Thank goodness for duct tape and the good people at Laura who helped us get going again. There was a Rodeo on in Laura and as Henk & Mike left town they could hear on the PA system the words of a song "when I get knocked down I get up again". Had a good laugh at that as we rode on to Lakeland to pick up our panniers that we had left with Morsey and Carol from the Lakeland Coffee House. These people are great , so helpful. Highly recommend Lakeland Coffee house to anyone who dares to go to the Cape.
Back on the blacktop at Lakeland. Seemed so strange after 7 days of gravel, sand, bull dust, and river crossings.