Tassie 2016 Nev & Jo

nev

Super Térrarist
Friday afternoon we packed and headed to Station Pier. Plenty of vehicles queued up even at 5pm.

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One of the loading ramps was damaged in strong winds a month or so back and is still out of action. All loading had to proceed via the lower ramp and it was quite slow.

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nev

Super Térrarist
First stop was a bakery in Beaconsfield for breakfast and to kill a bit of time, then up to Beauty Point to visit Seahorse world

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Bridport for lunch, then meandered our way into Launceston to our motel
 

nev

Super Térrarist
Sunday was a non riding day. The weather in Launceston was perfect. First order of business was the motor museum.
Their current rotating display theme is Peter Brock. A few of these cars are on loan from elsewhere. I recognised a few that we'd seen a couple of years ago in the motor museum in Maffra Vic.

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nev

Super Térrarist
On a mezzanine level they had a nice bike display

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Including this 1914 JAP.

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Then a walk down to Cataract Gorge. Walked up the gorge and then rode the chairlift from one side to the other and back.

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In the evening we went on a 2hr walking "ghost tour" of Launceston. Some interesting historical aspects to the town.

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nev

Super Térrarist
Monday morning we hit the road, tracking south adjacent to the Midland Hwy to Campbell Town.

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Then west, through the valleys. The gravel road from Bracknell to Quamby Brook was a ripper. Deloraine and Mole Creek, then south and east again back towards the A5 where we headed up to the Great Lakes.

Stopped for the night at the Great Lakes Pub.

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nev

Super Térrarist
Shortly after we left Great lakes we turned off the Highland Lakes Rd and onto the Waddamana Road. This road passed by the Penstock Lagoon, and the Waddamana Hydro power station.

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This power station was the first Hydro power in Tassie, and was completed and turned on one hundred years ago, in 1916. It was decommissioned in 1964 and has been turned into a museum. The dirt road continued 60km south all the way to the Lyell Hwy in Ouse.

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We had a break at Meadowbank Lake

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After heading south through Westerway and Bushy Park we headed north again and hit the dirt on Marked Tree Rd.

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A minute or so after that picture was taken, near the locality of Pelham, a small wallaby shot out of the bushes on the side of the road and before I could even react i felt my front and rear wheels both go over him. The Super Tenere stayed upright, but I decided to stop and check for any damage. I pulled the front brake lever and it sank all the way to the handlebar with no resistance. Got off and had a look around but there was no sign of any obvious damage to the wheel or brake lines. I pumped the brake a few times while it was stopped and normal pressure built back up. Got back on and moved off again. Tested the front brake and it pulled all the way back to the lever, but if I pumped it a few times then stopping power would return, but this proved to be very problematic while riding, and the front brake wasn't much use except as a park brake and I relied on the rear brake for the 50km or so into Hobart. Straight to the Yamaha dealer and a quick check revealed that the right front disk was warped enough from the wallaby impact to push the brake pistons back into the caliper whenever the wheel rotated. We were planning to stop here for a couple of nights so a new part was ordered from Sydney with the expectation it would probably arrive late on Thursday morning.

We found our motel in Battery Point and settled in.

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The locals are quite modest

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nev

Super Térrarist
Wednesday morning we headed out to MONA on the ferry.
It took about an hour to walk around the gallery to see all of the exhibits.
It turned out the most interesting were outside. (If you ask me all of the stuff inside was rubbish)

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I got a call from the bike shop that the new brake rotor had arrived, so they'll fit it for me first thing in the morning.

Not a lot else happened

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That night we took a walking Ghost tour of Hobart led by a very talkative transgender guide.
No ghosts out tonight, but this building was previously a hospital, and it was where Errol Flynn was born.

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nev

Super Térrarist
Straight to the bike shop and had the rotor fitted while we walked to maccas for breakfast. We were back on the road before 9:30am. South to Bruny Island.

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Passing the other ferry mid-trip

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We were planning just a quick reconnaisance of Bruny Island. I hadn't been able to find any accommodation on the island so had decided to do a quick lap then get out of Dodge and up the east coast. We were on the 10:30am ferry. We rode down south as far as the entrance to the National Park, but not all the way to the lighthouse, then back to Lunawanna and across the Coolangatta Road to Adventure Bay. Stopped there for lunch then back north to an oyster farm where we stopped to share some fresh oysters before getting the 2pm ferry back to the mainland. From there we shot straight back through Hobart and up to Swansea for the night.
 

nev

Super Térrarist
A lot of rain was forecast for overnight thursday and Friday in Tas, but fortunately not much of it fell in the middle of the island. The worst we saw was some drizzle and about 10 mins of rain on the Lake Leake Road. There was more substantial rain while we were stopped for breakfast in Campbell Town but we waited until it had cleared before moving out.

Went south for a few km and then headed west/north on Auburn Rd. This started out as bitumen but then went to gravel for about 20km. It was good enough condition to continue riding despite the rain that had fallen. The road ran through the valley, and though it was raining on the ranges around us, we stayed dry.

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Spent the night in Sheffield, the town of murals.

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nev

Super Térrarist
Our last day. First we headed down to Cradle mountain.

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At Hellyer Gorge we passed the Tassie Tractor Trekkers.

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After lunch in Penguin we headed down to Gunns Plains,

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and tootled around the backroads of northern Tassie, arriving at the Ferry Terminal a few mins before 5pm

In the carpark we were surprised by Silvio and Lisa from OpenRoad Tourers who had recognised our bikes. It was nice to see some familiar faces and share some stories about our trips on the last few hours of our week away.

Again at the melbourne terminal there were delays getting offloaded because only one loading ramp was available and that combined with a variety of road and freeway closures plus the F1GP weekend meant a few minor headaches getting home off the boat.
 
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