DAY 25
Today was going to be something different for Chiller (Steve). He wanted to tackle the dirt of the Western Explorer up to Arthur River and back. I had ridden the W.E. a few weeks back but was happy to go again.
We set off from Queenstown at about 0930 as it was getting a bit cool early in the mornings. We enjoyed the twisty road across to Zeehan. I stopped for a quick photo of the church as we entered town.
Zeehan had some cool old buildings which I should have taken more photos of, but we were a bit behind schedule so we pressed on. Just north of Zeehan Steve had an “encounter” with a kamikaze wallaby. I looked down to adjust my heated grips and as I looked up I saw a wallaby rolling away from under his bike. Steve looked quite stable with just a small shake, then we needed to tip into a left corner. We wheeled around and went back for a look. The wallaby was VERY dead and there was a long skid mark where it had been punted along the road and off the side into the gravel. Luckily it hadn’t done any damage to his bike, nor jumped into the side of his front wheel, taking him down! He had been very, very lucky with the timing to hit the wallaby dead centre.
It wasn’t one of the tiny Pademelons but one of the mid-sized wallabies.
We were a bit gun shy of the shadowed bits of road for a while, so we’re relieved when the road opened out a bit. This opening out gave way to some vistas out to a wind farm and the west coast.
The road along here consisted a bit of everything. Open, tree’d, twisty, straight. Everything until we got to the Corinna turnoff.
Arriving at the Pieman river I wandered over and pressed the ferry “call” button. The ferryman wasn’t long coming out of the office to drive the ferry across to us.
We were across in no time and didn’t pay the ferryman until we got to the other side…😏 When we did pay we also had a coffee and took in the ambiance of Corinna.
Ambiance imbibed, we blasted out the road to the Western Explorer turn off.
We hooked along at a good pace considering Steve hasn’t done much dirt work. We had the odd stop to regroup/take in the scenery.
The road really opened out in the last 10 kilometres so the throttles were opened too.
At the intersection of Tarkine Drive we decided what to do. I reckon if we had turned around here Steve would have had enough fuel to get back but he wanted to go on to Arthur River. We could get fuel there…
The road to Arthur River initially started out as a bunch of 55km/h corners through a forest. The surface was new and it was a cracking bit of road.
At Arthur River we found…not much. A spread out shanty/shack town with a cafe’ and not much else. Certainly no fuel anyway!
Sandwiches were the order of the day before we had to go another 15km north for fuel.
We got fuel at Marrawah under the scornful gaze of the attendant. We must have looked dodgy, like we were going to do a runner. FFS! I’ll be happy to NEVER come here again.
See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya!
The return was a bit of a race to beat the last ferry, otherwise we would have a 150km detour at wildlife o’clock. Back at the Western Explorer we started off riding side by side to avoid the thick dust.
Only a couple of brief stops heading south. North to south is definitely the better way to go. The scenery just “pops” when heading south.
We made the ferry cut off time comfortably - well, the summer cutoff of 7pm. We weren’t sure if they were operating on the winter 5pm cutoff, hence the spirited ride back south.
Once there we shared the ferry with an old Merc.
We basically nailed it (within reason) all the way back to Queenstown. It was a big day on the bikes with lots of concentration on the dirt. When we finally arrived back at the hotel just before 6pm, we were buggered. After jumping through the shower to freshen up, we joined the other guys in the bar to wash the dust down with a few frosty ones.
We had a great night with another awesome dinner and drinks plus lots of friendly banter. A great day on the bike with a top bloke then great food and drinks with a great bunch of blokes. Does it get any better than this?
Another 425-ish kilometres on the bikes with quite a bit of that being dirt (the pin striped bits in the elevation profile). What a day out!
They can’t spell but they sure could cook!
Grand scenery on that western explorer and really scored with the weather. Enjoying the reports from both blogs on this ride very much.
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