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

 DAY 22

This morning Steve and I kept up our support of the local bakeries, today to our detriment. Feeble pies and coffee coloured warm milk. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all. 🤨

It  was stands up at 9am and we trod carefully on the road out to Elephant Pass. It was wet from overnight showers and I was taking it very carefully on the knobbies again. (Riding my Tuono in the wet at home a few weeks later it feels totally planted. This justifies my very careful speed in the wet on the knobbies, despite feeling slow, being dropped like a hot potato by the lads😕)

The road did dry out as we climbed the pass, being dry on the eastern side. Steve and I stopped for a couple of photos.

The road along to Bicheno wasn’t anything super special with slow traffic and limited overtaking opportunities. Coming into Bicheno the thirsty Tuono pair filled up while I went exploring across the road.

There were 100+ old English bikes just rolling out of town, headed north as we rolled into town. Obviously an organised rally and we were to learn in the pub in Hobart the next night that one of the older riders from the USA had an apparent medical incident, crashed and passed away just up the road. Sad but I guess he went doing something he loved.😔

We stopped into a park overlooking Waubs Bay. It was nice to stretch the legs and yawn a bit. All of this “saving Tassie one pub at a time” was quite taxing for an old bloke but I didn’t want to back off and let the team down….😜

We continued on to Coles Bay on the Freycinet Peninsula. The road in was nice with a few loooong sweeping 55km/h corners that seemed to go on forever. Rolling into Coles Bay we went down to the wharf  where we had an uninterrupted view across the bay.

    

We conducted a practice police line-up for our imminent arrival in the state’s capital, Hobart.

After a coffee break we again split the team. The road boys turned off up Lake Leake road where Steve and I tootled along to take some photos in places we had snapped pics in back during our 2003 tour.

Jus out of Orford the road follows the Prosser river for a while. We circled back here for a couple of photos.

We stopped at the Buckland Inn for a cheeky pot, as we had done back in 2003. Check Steve’s blog for the   then and now photos.

The road into Sorell was quite a fun bit of tar that was rather spoilt by a fair amount of VERY slow traffic. Some serious twisting of the wrist was needed to dispatch them at times. We stopped at a Brumbys Bakery in Sorell for a late lunch and decided to head straight through Hobart and up to Mt Wellington. As we began the climb we encountered a guy with a stop and go sign - stop side out. It turned out Mt Wellington was closed for road works until Friday. Today was Tuesday and we were leaving Thursday. I was suddenly glad I went for the “bird in the hand” approach a few weeks ago and did the climb.

We tried to grab a consolation beer at the Ferntree Tavern but it was closed too! Toys out of the pram, we headed for the hotel, filling our tanks at a cool little service station, where we waved to the road boys as they cruised past.

Our digs were the slightly flash Wrest Point Casino, but in the povo rooms as the main tower was being refurbished. I booked later than the others and had to pay a bit more but somehow jagged a large room with three beds in it. This would be important tomorrow.

We had a few drinks and dinner in the Hotel before retiring for a relatively early night.

An easy day at just on 300 kilometres. I think if you are planning a ride around Tasmania 300 kilometres is the magic number. Sure, you can do more but you will miss so much and fatigue will catch up with you. The roads down here demand respect and your attention at all times.

Some better photos and words in Steve’s post here.

DAY 23

Today was a bit of a “rest” day. We planned on doing a short loop to the south of Hobart via Kettering, Woodbridge, Verona Sands, Huonville and back to Hobart. I tensioned my chain in anticipation. 😁

We got a bit of a late start as my chosen breakfast location was a one man band and our food took about an hour to arrive. 

I also got us a bit lost trying to find the correct road out of Margate. This hour and a bit was about what we needed to dodge the rain showers that were blowing in from the south west. Somewhere just south of Woodbridge the rain got heavy enough for everyone to stop to put wets on. A general consensous of “fcuk this” was agreed and we turned back north, got on the motorway and beelined it for Hobart. The plan was to ride north east of Hobart as the radar was clear out that way but as we dropped off the hills to the south west of Hobart we could see extensive showers in that area too. 

As we didn’t HAVE to be anywhere today we decided to cut our losses and go back to the hotel.

We decided Plan B was to be a trip into the city. We caught the bus into town, for free!

Now, my rear tyre was getting a bit thin (again) so I decided to walk to one of the bike shops to see what they had in stock, just in case. It was like the hire car scene from The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty with regard to tyre selection, except they had 3. 😆😆

The interesting part of this walk was meeting a Tasmanian motorcycle policeman. He was clad all in black with just a police shoulder patch on each sleeve. His helmet was plain white with the blue/white checkering only on the back. On the mainland motorcycle cops are walking advertisements for high vis companies. Checking out his bike we found a nice, new Triumph Tiger 900 with super-stealth lights and sirens. Very sneaky!

The funny thing was he seemed a bit taken aback when I asked him what the bike was like and also his Shoei Neotec helmet (I’m thinking of getting one). He seemed like a decent bloke but I got the impression he doesn’t have many civil conversations like this  with members of the public. 🤔

Wandering back into town we grabbed a bite to eat then chased the other guys down. Of course, they were in a pub but somewhat surprisingly, it wasn’t the closest one to where we ate! They had made it down to Salamanca Place and got sucked into the closest pub there.😁 Salamanca Place is one of the oldest areas of European habitation in Australia, with Hobart settled in 1804 and the old storehouses being built not long after. Today they are all pubs, restaurants and gift shops. It sure is one pretty place and just oozes history.

From here we climbed up to Battery Point and the Shipwrights Arm Hotel. It was quite empty when we arrived so we settled in for the long haul - as our dinner booking was just around the corner at Da Angelo’s Italian restaurant. Steve and I stayed in the Shippys in 2003 and had a great time. The place is full of shipping history and well worth a visit even if you just want a lemon squash while you peruse the memorabilia on the walls.

The anointed hour arrived for dinner and we staggered up the hill to Da Angelo’s. I have eaten here a few times on work trips and knew the boys were in for a treat. The food is excellent and out waitress was intelligent and cheeky. Perfect! A great time was had by all and we couldn’t quite believe how cheap the bill was for what we ate and drank! 

Winning!😎

Half of us decided to walk back to Wrest Point while the other half cabbed it. The walk was just the ticket to work some excess calories off and we used the cover of darkness to sneak off to bed.

Speaking of bed, Steve’s bed last night felt like it was on the side of a hill apparently, so he moved in with me, finding one of the spare beds in my room to his liking.

All up, it was a good day and probably not such a bad thing to have some time off the bikes. Having said that we still did about 100 kilometres.

More photos and words here in Steve’s post.