A View from Above: Not A Mid Life Crisis, Just An Extended Tour (Part VIII)

DAY 11

I had a great nights sleep and was awake early. Not that I had to get going any time soon, but I got up and had my cheap 'n' cheerful breakfast. These little yoghurts are great as they keep well, take up next to no space then roll down into nothing once done. Black coffee mightn't be my preference but is definitely better than nothing.

Next was packing up and drying my tent for a bit in the sun that was finally peeking over the hill behind me. Where to today...?

I thought instead of going back west to Zeehan I would follow this C252 (Pieman Rd) east to Tullah, then head south for Queenstown. Good choice, as the road proved to be a cracker! I didn't see a single car in the 54km of bends! The surface was mostly excellent and the road carved through forest, climbed up and wound it's way around (you know those 180 degree + corners 😋) open hills before plunging back into lush forest again. The bike was basically only upright as it transitioned between corners.

I had a quick look at the boat ramp into the Wilson River. It was like riding down into a scene from The Lord Of The Rings!

Arriving at the A10 intersection I had the rude shock of seeing traffic, having to wait for several cars to pass before turning south toward Tullah! Just a few kilometres down the road were some road works. As I stopped at the lights I could see that there had been a fairly extensive bushfire very recently. (got to love these traffic control lights that give a countdown to when they will change! Tassie is way ahead of QLD)

The fire had basically burned right to the very edge of Tullah. I bet they though the town was lost that day. 😧

The roadworks went right through town and for a few kilometres out the other side. The 40km/h speed limit gave me time to fumble for the GoPro to get a few pictures of Mt Murchison (I think) as it was so imposing. Unfortunately, the GoPro makes it look pretty insignificant.

Being back on a main road also saw the road kill reappear (there was none at all on the C252 this morning). I have a theory as to why there is so much down here and it goes like this - on the mainland the roos are mostly Eastern Greys which are quite large and can write a small car off if you are unlucky enough to hit one, so people do their best to avoid them. Down here in Tassie they all seem to be some small, dark species of Wallaby that doesn't even come up to your knee. So my theory is that most people don't even try to avoid decking them as they are only going to (most likely) do superficial damage to your car and absolutely none to a truck. Anyway. look away if you don't like your meat rare....

Now this faffing with the GoPro led me to miss the turn down the B28 (Anthony Road). I was planning on getting off the main drag and enjoying the quieter back road and many bends past Lake Plimsol, as Steve and I had done back in 2003 (pictured below from pre-digital camera days)

Anyway, so I didn't realise I had missed the turn until I hit Roseberry. Bugger. So I just kept going, doing battle with all the cars and trucks crawling their way southward. Eventually I rolled into Queenstown and found a cafe for a late morning tea. Ham, cheese and tomato hit the spot while I checked some emails and bragged some (not intentionally) on Netrider.

It was a cracking day and I wasted a good hour or more just watching the happenings of down town Queenstown. Yep, it was bustling!

A quick shop for food for tonight in the general store as I was planning on camping, then I was off up the road. Up was the operative word as I twisted my way up the 99 bends out of town.

As I was about to jump back on the bike a guy on an '02 R1 came crawling up the hill, stuck behind a slow ute. Probably a good thing as he was in shirtsleeves. Wouldn't want to push it have an off...

Just out the road there was an imposing hill, Mt Owen I think, that had a dirt track zig-zagging up it's face. You can just make out the switchbacks in the below photo. That would be one hell of a climb!

Back on the road to Derwent Bridge I soon realised that I had forgot to refuel in Q'town! D'oh! Oh well, I hope Derwent Bridge has fuel!

I passed a few larger groups of bikes along here, mostly Harleys.

I soon caught up to a car stuck behind a slow moving caravan. Luckily, the van pulled over to let us pass and as we did I thought about passing the Subaru wagon that had been stuck as well. I was soon glad I didn't because this guy knew the road and was hooking along! He proved to be an excellent pre warning if I needed to brake for a corner or not. To be honest, he was slightly quicker through the corners and I'd catch him with acceleration. It was fun and we soon caught the guy on the R1 again. There are a stack of corners as you get closer to Derwent Bridge and the guy on the R1 was going reasonably quickly but not stupidly so. I figure this may have been because his arse crack was showing and he didn't want to risk an off.

We both stopped for fuel in Derwent Bridge and I had a good chat with the R1 owner. He had just bought the bike, an immaculate '02 or '03 (he wasn't sure 😏) and this was his first ride. I nicely suggested he get some proper riding gear, especially as there are 10 000 corners in this area where it could go wrong and it would also save the rest of us looking at his arse crack.

After filling with the most expensive 91 that I have seen this trip ($2.081 a litre) I left him to his devices (or device, which was in his hand) and headed for Bronte Park. The bridge at Nive River made for a dramatic looking scene and reminded me of Lindis Pass on the South island of NZ.

Turning left through Bronte Park, where everyone had a pile of firewood that was higher than their cabin or caravan, I soon came to some dirt. Cool.

The road to Miena proved to be mostly excellent dirt with a few sections of corrugations. I soon found the correct speed to have the suspension iron out the corrugates so that I could barely feel them.

The road climbed up onto a high plateau where I could see for miles. it also looked like cold country and it was almost 10 degrees cooler up here than it had been down in Q'town this morning. I rolled past the Great Lake Hotel and decided it was late enough to grab a beer. I thought I might also enquire about accommodation.

The beer was micro brewery fare and quite tasty. The rooms were clearly a bit up market too as they wanted $120 for a single with shared facilities. Hmmm, a quick Google and Mole Creek was only 91 kilometres away....a quick call and I had a pub room for $50. "See you in 90 minutes or so!"

Yeah, the other way, doofus!

The high plateau theme continued and this bit reminded me of some lonely roads through central Wyoming - only ~3500ft lower. Still, it was getting cool so I stopped quickly to zip some vents closed. Nice!

Yeah, two beers will do that.....

The road wound it's way along the western side of the lake and through a looong quasi village of fishing shacks and huts. I wish I had stopped to take some photos as some were quite elaborate. I was expecting dirt road here but the tar keep on coming. Climbing the switchbacks just north of Breona was fun and lifted me to a whole new level of alpine! The road here was new and just sensational. I could barely stop myself to take a photo. In fact I couldn't stop at Pine Lake which looked like it needed a much closer inspection (I'll be back!) I managed to stop somewhere in Liffey Forest for this photo.

Then shortly after for these.

Then there was no more stopping as the road was just too much fun. Dropping off the high country was via a sensational set of 25 and 35km/h corners. They were so similar to the corners off the Tier near Poatina that I wondered if that was where I was. But I soon rolled into Deloraine, so these were a different great set of bends. My new favourite in Tassie!

Heading west out of Deloraine for Mole Creek I stopped quickly to look back at where I had just been.

The rise across to Mole Creek was a familiar one. The friendly bar staff soon had me into my room and I nibbled on my camping provisions while reflecting on the day's ride.

Only 363 kilometres for the day but crikey, there were some corners in there! Somewhat surprisingly, the rear tyre had been holding up well. Tomorrow I would head into Launny to get the new one fitted though, then maybe have a look out east.

To be continued.......