Whilst staying in Port Douglas we headed inland for some mountain biking in the Atherton Tablelands, a plateau which forms part of the great dividing range. A bit of googling and we found the nice people at Atherton bike hire who provided us with well maintained bikes for half a day’s cycling. The drive from Port Douglas to Atherton (120KM) was worthwhile just in itself – a long winding climb up to Mount Malloy and a fantastic drive through the early morning mist.
We’d left Port Douglas in t-shirt weather and stopping for fuel up on the higher plain we were a little shocked to find 5 degrees – almost as shocked as the gas station owner to see me in shorts!
We found the bike hire people (located in a furniture store), and got some great local advice before setting off to the Atherton Forest Mountain Bike Park, a 15 minute ride from the town via an off road link track.
Atherton Forest Mountain Bike Park
I’ve never been anywhere quite like this – on arrival at the park we were greeted with a trail map more akin to a piste map at a ski resort. The entire park was set out before us with a variety of trails that follow a one way system along graded routes (green = easy, blue = more challenging). It’s well maintained, signposted, and we had a great 3 hours or so on the easier green trails. The terrain is sometimes rugged, (I believe the biking term is ‘technical’), through beautiful gum tree / grass land, which we shared with precisely 3 other people and 1 kangaroo for the entire time that we were in the park; I would imagine it’s busier at weekends.
Whether a casual rider or serious enthusiast I can definitely recommend a day trip to go Mountain Biking in the Atherton Tablelands whist staying in the Cairns / Port Douglas area.
After our adventure we took the link path back to Atherton and went to the ‘skills park’ – I arrived with none and left with similar, whilst my 15 year old son had a great time before returning the bikes. We took scenic route back to Port Douglas via Gallo Dairyland, for a snack where you can watch the cheese and chocolate production in action, and then a quick walk at Lake Eacham which was beautiful, and we were lucky to watch the turtles from the jetty.