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Tasmania is Oz's Island state and a great place for biking , this was my 5th trip down from the mainland and I cant wait to go again, amazing roads, great scenery and fantastic food mmmmmm. There was me (Africa Twin 750), Rob (KTM950), Margaret (R6), Mike(1150GSA), Nick (XTZ660), Steve(100GS) and Mascha a Dutch girl studying in Oz for a couple of years on a borrowed CBR600.
We headed out from Sydney for the 2 day 1100km ride to melbourne to get the boat across Bass Straight to Tassie and only got 3 hours away before some dramas. Heading down the dirt to Braidwood the whole front of my bike fell off:huh , the fairing ,lights and instruments landed on the front wheel, **** !!!. On investigation the mounts on the steering head had broken off:cry , I rode the last 20km holding the fairing on with one hand and then In Braidwood we stripped the bike and had the monts welded back onto the frame, not perfectly straight but the AT just has some more character.
A nice night at the Delegate hotel and it was down the 100km of magic tar that is the Bonang Hwy
Where somehow Nick managed to run out of gas so it was a quick transfer of a few lirters from the tanker (100GS)
and along to melbourne
and to the docks to get the boat.
it's an overnight trip and we arrived in Devonport about 7am and we were all pretty excited to to roll off the boat and get riding. Tassie even though it is suffering the drought as well is a lot greener than most of the rest of oz
Soon it was time for our first (but not last) food and coffee stop near Exceter
Along through launceston and it was time for the great ride around the nth east to Coles Bay.
A great place for a stop along the way, the Weldborough pub
A stop at a cheese factory
Some more great riding
and it's time for a stop at the Elephant pass Pamncake parlour Yummee!!
A short run down the coast and we arrive at our Cabins in Coles Bay and our 1st day of bliss is almost over, but first it's time for cheese, bikkies ans some drinks !!!
ahh Coles Bay it's a bueat place, really stunning scenery. A good nights rest and it was into the touristy stuff!! After Brekkie of course !!
Masha found her new vocation, a steam shovel driver :rofl
Some went for a bushwalk to Wineglass Bay
Rob & Iwent for a short walk and lazed around, did bike maintenance and of course had lunch, a curried scallop pie and too baby chicken & camenbert pies, Ah Tassie is great:freaky
Nick headed off to visit some wineries and get some crayfish for dinner, no crays unfortuneately, the Japs buy em all for big $$, bugger:cry but he didn't return empty handed, half a dozen bottles of Pinot and 5 dozen oysters so it was time for aftwernoon tea
ahem, enough of the eating ( for now)
Some more of the great Coles Bay scenery
Strange to see a sunset over the ocean when you on the east coast:confused
Onto Hobart Oz's most beautifull city i reckon
A bit of dirt
Rob cant do his own navigation !!
And it was on to Port Arthur, once a secondary punishment place for convicts who offended in the colony. It was a pretty horrible place in those days now it's quite beautifull. Not to mention its the place where in 96 a guy went mad and shot 35 people which adds an extra layer of tradgedy to the colonial ghosts
Ah Hobart, an exclellent town,
lots of historucal buildings
A great waterfront
views of the city from Mount Wellington
Faeries ( must be a KTM accesorie shop)
good pubs with good food
and Cowboy Cocksuckers (for the plebs thats Butterscotch Snaps and baileys)
West from Hobart heading for Strahan on the west coast, through the lovely, almost parkland of the Derwent valley
The salmon ponds, where they first brought Trout and Salmon eggs to Oz for stocking our rivers & dams
The Gordon Dam at Strathgordon
Rob's Tom Tom GPS died, now were ****ed none of us technofiles can read a paper map anymore
The further west from hobart the wilder the country gets, it was pretty cold and when we got to Derwent bridge the pub looked like an inviting place for areast, get warm and of course have lunch
Some great fanging roads a short bushwalk and it was time for the cherry on top of the icing for the day the 50km of S bends from Queentown to Strahan
We stayed at a great place in Strahan with a great view over the town
And of course we had to have dinner and desert
The next morning I didn't want to wake up
But someone mentioned food
ahh pancakes
Eventually we headed off to do the tourist stuff, a quad bike tour through the dunes was a hoot
From the dunes we could see ocean beach, it's 70km long and gets the waves and the wind all the way from South America, there's nothing in it's path for thousands of km, some of the cleanest air in the world on tassie's west coast
Now in Tas you can ride on the beach, there's been a whale stranding on ocean beach so we decided to go and have a look
30+ pilot whales had stranded and most of them had died, the 5 left alive had been moved to a sheltered spot to try and get them strong and out to sea
A sad sight, the dead whales
The lives whales
Finally in Strahan we got some Crays:clap , we'd mentioned to the guide on the quad ride about not getting any crays and he sent us to see his brother who has a cray boat and had just come in with his catch (and hadn't sold them to the exporter yet) that morning, excellent fresh crays at a bargain price, so an early dinner it was
After our feed of crays we didn't feel like dinner but about 9pm we got the munchies so I made an emergency dash to the shop for some chocolate and the makings for an Ozzie ritual
We introduced Margaret who's norwegian and Mascha to the delights of shotgunning Tim Tams, one of life's to delights
Mascha's 1st shotgun, a moment to be preseved and remembered for all time
For you poor non Aussies, here's a guide to pleasure, do yourself a fovour and give it a try
http://loveandcooking.blogspot.com/2...t-tim-tam.html
We headed nth for our last night in tassie, it was a cold rainy start to the day. We split up with Steve, Nick and I heading onto the dirt to Corinna and Savage river. the white silica Tassie dirt roads are great in the wet, not slippery at all
We crossed the Pieman river on the "Fatman" barge, how appropriate !!
Had a cuppa at Corrina
And met the others at the Warratah pub, it was still cold and the fire felt great
across the road from the pub is a great waterfall, right in the center of town
Our last night in tassie was spent at lemontyme lodge a rather luxorious eco lodge nestled in the forest, lovely
Mike & margaret even had a spar in their little love nest but the bastards didn't want to share it with the rest of us:deal
There was a couple o Echidna's wandering around the place and of course the girls loved it
A slpa up dinner, some wine and lots of reminiscing of the last week
And we got to meet some of the locals
A few piccies from our last day in tassie
I was in Sheffield and met this guy walking down the main st leading an Alpaca
We were having a chat and i was asking what he was doing when half a dozen girls ran over and went googoo over the Alpaca, "This is why" he said, "better than a sports car", "wish I'd known it 40 years ago" Tassie's full of eccentrics :rofl
Afternoon tea at the Anvers chocolate factory
A bit of thumb wrestling
and it was onto the boat for the trip back to the mainland
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Originally Posted by Xander
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