Not A Mid Life Crisis, Just An Extended Tour (Part XV) - The Sydney Contingent Arrive

 

Day 20

With this many cats to herd a rigid regime was put into place for every morning. Breakfast at 8am, stands up at 9am. Unfortunately the Deloraine Town Cafe’ bakery was closed this morning (WTF?) so we ate at a small cafe down the hill from the Holy Grail bakery cafe’. It was basic but good.

We were pleased to see that the bikes were still there in the morning. Another group were also staying and one of them had a Benelli Tornado. Now that is a bike you don’t see every day. I love the look of the extraction fans for the under seat radiator.

The plan for today was to take in Hellyer Gorge. How we got there wasn’t a real concern as any road would be a good one. The way we chose was through Mole Creek to the Round Mountain lookout. It was a smidge damp in the forest west of Mole Creek and I could feel my bike squirming around, so slowed waaay down but the others were on 80% or better road rubber so tore off. I caught back up at the Round Mountain lookout, where we looked at the underside of some low cloud. 😄

After a break to catch our breath we headed off again. I was ok when it was dry but the road was wet after the Moina turn off so I rapidly dropped off the pace on my knobby tyres. We turned right onto the A10 and headed north. We were planning on diverting into Waratah for fuel before hitting Hellyer Gorge as Dave’s Tuono was proving to be very thirsty after a recent Power Commander upgrade.

Unfortunately the petrol station in Waratah was closed with a note in the window stating that they had Covid, so, sorry. 😕 All we could do was push on and hope Dave had enough gas to get to Wynyard. Plan B was to use the siphon hose I had in my pannier and donate some fuel from my bike’s massive tank. After a quick look around Waratah, the only photo I took was of the pub.

So it was back out to the main road where we turned left, up Hellyer Gorge road. The road bikes took off like a scalded cats. Steve was usually right amongst them on his Africa Twin but strangely he was at the back with me now. Turned out he wanted to get some photos with his good camera. 

Glad he did as he got some cracking photos.

Chillertek/Road To Nowhere photo.

The others were  stopped at the rest area at the bottom of the gorge. There was another group of bikes stopped as well. 

There was some cool graffiti in the shelter.

The other group (all Harleys) were gearing up to go so I though “fcuk getting stuck behind them” and jumped on my bike and powered off. The others weren’t far behind and we had a great fun climb out of the gorge with Steve and the others only catching me a few corners before the road opened out. Hellyer Gorge really is a gem and even when it opens out the road is still twisty and scenic, virtually all the way to Oonah. How it looks on a map is in no way how it rides. 😍

Dave even made it to the fuel station in Yolla with about 2 litres to spare!

We trundled into Wynyard looking for some lunch. The bakery was almost closing so turned us away - 8x $15-20 out the door - so we grabbed something at the cafe’ next door.

Rather than head back the same way, our tour leader Doug suggested some back roads out of Penguin. Sure, why not? So we slabbed it across past Burnie to Penguin, then turned south on Pine Road, the South Riana road. These were narrow, winding farm roads that had sudden rises and drop-offs. You needed to be on your toes here! We happened upon George Woodhouse lookout and stopped here to take in the view over the valley. What a great idea to ride through here!

We took the C172 out of Gunns Plains. 

There were so many twists and turn here thatI just put Wilmer in the GPS and blindly followed the pink line. This eventually got us to the main road from Sheffield to Cradle Mountain - via some awesome, narrow farm roads. Highly recommended if you want to follow the route on the map below. 👍

We didn’t stop again until we reached Mole Creek. It was every man for himself, at his own pace. Somewhere near Liena road I came around a corner and was greeted by on ‘ol yella dog chewing on the tail of a dead wallaby. I slowed down and it eyed me suspiciously as I rolled past - never letting go of the wallaby’s tail. The other 7 guys all had the same experience. Bloody funny thing to see in the middle of nowhere. 😆

I was near to last to roll into Mole Creek and most of the guys were parked up in front of the pub. As I walked up to the bar on the front porch my Bro appeared carrying 8 pints of Boags. Shit, we weren’t mucking around!

One beer here and some reliving of the last few hours done, we peeled off toward Deloraine again. I swapped onto Steve’s Africa Twin 1100 and was surprised at how different it felt to mine. Waaay more bottom end power and generally snappier delivery than mine. The suspension felt stiff and the steering quicker also. Our bikes may share the same model name but they are like chalk and cheese. Mine feels like a big dirt bike while Steve’s is much more sports bikey.

Back in Deloraine we jumped through a shower then had a few more beers. Some other mates from Brisbane were in town at another pub so we wandered up  and had a great night dining with them. It was Scotty’s 60th so there was much merriment and vino flowing. 

Every time Scotty was sung Happy Birthday (and there were several) a speech was demanded. He stood, raised his glass and said “ here’s to me!” Brought the house down every time. (You possibly had to be there and 3 sheets to the wind, but Scotty is a funny guy 😆)

We stumbled home after a delicious dinner at the Empire Hotel. A couple of cheeky post dinner drinks were had in the common area back at the Deloraine Hotel before we turned in. Not sure if I mentioned it earlier but the rooms in the Deloraine hotel are excellent. All newly renovated, as are the bathrooms. They only charge the standard Tassie pub rate of $50 a single but they could easily justify much more when compared to the “standard” Tassie pub room.

It was a pretty epic 410 kilometres for the day. I know, it doesn’t sound far but there weren’t many easy kilometres in there. It was full concentration, all day - but how much fun was it?! 😎

Steve’s account of the day with lots of great photos is posted here.

To be continued…….