Cycle Touring Tassie: Part 2 - Better Late than Never

Well, I suppose you're wondering what happened on the second half of our cycling trip in Tassie (Australians love to abbreve). 

I got distracted and forgot to finish the saga and now we're nearly 2 weeks beyond our Tassie trip and half way up the Queensland coast. 

Where I last left off, we were enjoying day 10 of our cycle tour of the forgotten state of Tasmania.  We had passed through Cradle Mountain national park and rolled through Deloraine and Sheffield and were heading East towards the sunny tropical coast. 

 

We enjoyed a short day in the second largest city in Tasmania, Launceston, ("Lonnie" for short - see what I mean about the abbreves) and were surprised to find the city covered in green painted bike lanes and booming with 7 successful, thriving cycling shops in a town of 70,000. Pelotons of morning cycling groups passed us as we left the city and one lone cyclist told us that there's a group leaving the city every half hour starting at 530am. 

We had a bit of climbing to do before we ended up in the tiny, but now world famous town of Derby. Just four days before we arrived, Derby had hosted the World Cup for Enduro racing. The town had been packed with thousands of caravans filled with racers and spectators from around the world. Tiny Derby was there for everyone to see. The trails in Derby are only two years old but are world class. Derby won a grant proposal from the Australian government to help revitalize dying towns in Tassie that once boomed with logging and metal mining companies. Derby was struggling to maintain a single pub and its residents of less than a few hundred were hardly making ends meet.  A visionary imagined that they could use the old mining and logging land to make mountain bike trails and they won the proposal. Fancy trail builders from Mainland Australia came down and built an impressive network of swooping single track and epic downhills with themed names reminiscent of the town's mining days. Old rusty equipment lines the trails as well so you don't forget the heritage. The town now boasts 5 or 6 bike-themed eateries with microbrew beer, espresso coffees, wood fired pizza and all the other cliche things that cyclists love including rusty old bikes used as coat hangers and flower pots. It's a tiny little Bend just waiting to happen. 

 

While in Derby, we took our rickety little hard tail touring bikes with 2" suspension on the front for a jaunt on the trails and had a great time on the fabulously groomed, winding singletrack. 

Later that night, we chanced upon some vacationing locals in their tricked out campervans when they invited us to join them at their campfire. Heather and Dick live on 160 acres of eucalypt forest on the East Coast and Alan and Dinah live on an apple orchard south of Hobart. We shared a lovely evening with the four of them swapping stories and learning about history of the area. We were given unsolicited advice to not have children and then were invited to stay at their homes when we inevitably passed by on our push bikes. 

A few days later, after enjoying some of the best ice cream I've ever had in Pyenganna and after some of the best downhill rewards I've ever earned, we arrived to St. Helens and the glistening tropical Eastern Tassie coast. I keep saying to Bill, "I hope I remember this in 10 years!" after we finish an exhilarating 5 minute nonstop winding mountain road of amazing downhill. It, along with saying "We're Doing It!" became the constant mantras of the trip. 

We spent a night north of Binalong Bay at a picturesque ocean side camp site called Cosy Corner and fell asleep to waves crashing and woke to the sun rising out of the sea. The water was crystal clear and the red lichen on the rocks was so brilliantly contrasted with the sea that it almost looked spray painted on. 

We cycled south from there along coastal roads with incredible cerulean water at every turn. 

Eventually, we cycled up St.Mary's Pass and arrived to Heather and Dick's property high in the coastal mountains near the adorable small town of St.Marys. They and their two daughters welcomed us to their amazing property which is miles from any neighbor and completely self sufficient and off the grid with wood burning stove for heat, solar panels and rain catchment for water supply. They cooked us a lovely dinner and showed us their adopted sheep, aviary and the Bennetts wallabies that she raised as joeys who are now wild but still hang out to say hey. 

Heather even took us to see her friend who is an Animal Carer and had a house full of injured and nursing baby wombats, kangarooos, possums and wallabies. We got to hold little squirmy wombats and pet the soft silky fur of young joeys. 

 

 We spend a rainy few days at Freycinet National Park and had a lovely walk around the famous Wineglass Bay. I think we missed the "post card shot" because of the overcast skies but nonetheless enjoyed the continued theme of endless white sand beaches with turquoise water and not another soul in sight. 

 

A rainy night in Swansea was a well deserved rest day where we essentially spent the day in a completely empty hostel (creepy?) eating everything and watching Seinfeld reruns on the couch.

Our last stop was to Maria Island (pronounce it like Mariah Carey. Not like Jesus' mom). Maria was named after Van Dieman's wife and although it has a sketchy history as a famously brutal penal colony, it is now a national park and one of the best places in Tassie to see wildlife. We saw so many wombats roaming the island that they became as commonplace to see as squirrels in Central Park. We saw cape barren geese and forester kangaroos and even a wild Tasmanian devil. The island was so quiet and devoid of busy tourism it was a lovely respite despite the wind and rain. 

On our second day we walked to a quiet beach (which was also white sand, cerulean water and deserted - surprise, surprise) and decided to have a swim. We stripped off our clothes and went running into the sea naked and free. Not two minutes later a group of twenty or so tourists with backpacks emerged over the dunes just 50 meters down the beach. We had no choice but to exit the water and bare it all. We like to think they got a nice show of our by now pro level tan lines. Later as they walked by us, I lowered my head to avoid eye contact while Bill waved wildly and shouted hello as if they hadn't just seen my boobs. There are no pictures of that event. 

 

 

True to the unending kindness of Aussie hosts, Heather and Dick showed up in our story once more and offer to pick us up at the ferry depot and drive us back to Hobart so that we don't have to suffer another windy rainy ride. Yes, Please! We had second breakfast at a lovely historic town called Richmond and enjoyed a beautiful drive through hillsides of vineyards turning yellow with the change of the season. 

Back in Hobart, we sampled local beer and most especially had a memorable evening at Hobart Brewing Company when the brewmasters welcomed us over to a huge bonfire where they were roasting chestnuts to be used in a nut brown they were starting the next day. Around the fire with the crisp winter air of southern Tasmania we sipped smooth porters, noshed on roasting chestnuts and chatted about the evolving microbrew culture in the city. 

We had 24 days in Tasmania. More than most tourists who might give it 10 days if their feeling generous but likely only 4-5 days. We got to see more of the state than most and experience small towns and genuine local hospitality. We saw and smelled more by way of the bike than we would have in a car and earned every piece of cheese and glass of wine by pedaling the get there.  We absolutely loved our time in Tassie and hope that our future holds another visit to retrace old footsteps, see the places we missed and to catch up with the kindest most hospitable people we've met. 

I have a feeling our Tasssie trip will hold a very special place in our memories.