Done In by the Tasmanian Highways

We, and our bicycles, arrived in Hobart, explored a little and stayed at the Brunswick Hotel (hostel). In the morning, we went for a walk and were very pleasantly surprised by how clean - disturbingly clean - the harbour there is.

Since we seemed to have no jet lag at all, we left Hobart a day early to begin our tour, and I was very grateful to discover that there is an Inter-City Cycleway that was supposed to connect Hobart to Richmond (and other points). We headed up the Inter-City Cycleway towards Richmond. Being that we needed to get used to doing everything on the "wrong" side of the road, starting out on a Cycleway was perfect. I felt happy and strong. The Cycleway, sadly, didn't last long and soon spit us out onto the highway to Richmond. I found the undulating hills to be very challenging while hauling the extra weight of the gear. I have two rear panniers, two front panniers, a back box, and a backpack. There was one very long hill to climb, which I did climb completely on-bike, but not without some serious whingeing. We made the 30km to Richmond and I was pretty happy to stop, wondering how I was going to make out with the ~70km/day Brent had planned for us.

Day 2 was very tough. We rode only 60km from Richmond to Orford. The pavement was quite rough asphalt, which slows me down even more than the hills, head winds, and extra weight. There were four long, sometimes steep, hills that I pushed the bike up, including Black Charlie's Opening and Bust-Me-Gall Hill. Good thing Brent is a patient (very patient) man. He stayed with me and encouraged me... and ultimately ended up insisting on taking some weight from me. The road was narrow, with poor shoulders and there was quite a bit of traffic, including many logging trucks which would fly by and create a bike-shuddering vaccuum in their wake. I was working hard at the cycling, and concentrating hard on staying on the shoulder and not weaving out onto the road. I knew I'd be very happy to reach the east coast, which was where the bulk of our fun was waiting for us, with a nice coastal route and less mountains.

In Orford the accommodations were very slim pickings and we ended up renting a $45 room with a shared bathroom down at the end of the building. The sink was plugged and half-full of rusty water and there was no shower, but I enjoyed very much chatting with Cindy from Papua New Guinea who was staying a couple doors down. It was in Orford where I first saw the southern hemisphere stars - they are SO bright and spectacular - WOW! And there were two "clouds" of stars. Brent and I had read in "Death from the Skies" (cheers, Haysn) that the Milky Way is in the process of absorbing two smaller galaxies and we wondered if that was what we were seeing.

Day 3 was an easy 10km ride to Triabunna where we caught the ferry over to Maria Island and then did a couple of hikes to Fossil Cliffs and Painted Cliffs. We camped at the Darlington site, and then on Day 4 we rode from Darlington down to French's Farm and back, which was a pleasant 20km round trip on a dirt (sometimes sandy) road before catching the ferry back to Triabunna.

Day 5... the moment of truth. We're finally at the east coast highway and heading up towards Swansea. Swansea was supposed to be an easy 50km up the road, with much less elevation gain and loss than previous days. In spite of having mild food poisoning the night before, I hoped that we would be able to overshoot Swansea, camping someplace north, so that we'd be on target to make our kilometers and be in Devonport in plenty of time for our ferry on Thursday.

The hills were, overall, shorter and less steep than Black Charlie's Opening and Bust-Me-Gall but they weren't exactly easy, either. The highest single climb was only about 100m, but we gained and lost so many meters throughout the day that I would guess, overall, it was probably 1000m or so gained and lost. Brent took the bag with our food and cooking gear (my heaviest) and I took his bag with his sleeping bag and liner. To my surprise, beyond our highest climb of 100m, there were two more very big, challenging hills - the Rocky Hills - that I ended up pushing up (even though I'd done the first 100m climb).

What finally broke me, though, was the road. It is a narrow, winding, two-lane highway with absolutely NO shoulder. No shoulder. The side of the road mostly came to an abrupt end, with a 4" drop-off into... whatever... sometimes a soft clay slope, sometimes a steep ditch of rocks and plants. The road itself barely has room for two vehicles to safely pass each other in opposite direction - there's no room for bikes in the mix. There were a lot less big trucks than before, but they were still prevalent, and the vehicle, caravan, and towed-boat traffic was relentless. Many of the drivers were quite cautious about going around us, but there were plenty who weren't, and there were several times when traffic met from both directions that I felt we'd narrowly escaped. I struggled to stay on the road, as far off to the side as possible without falling off the side drop-off into... whatever. It was frustrating, disheartening, and treacherous.

About halfway to Swansea, I called it quits in my head. I told Brent, as a head's up, that I wanted to discuss contingency plans because I was having a miserable time. Fighting to stay on the road and avoiding the traffic afforded me no time to even look around and enjoy what I was supposed to be here enjoying (and, frankly, there wasn't much in the way of views for at least the first half, as we had constant hills between us and the coast). When we arrived in Swansea, it was still fairly early in the day, but we knew that the riding was done for the day - I was done.

We booked into the Swansea Backpackers, which is run by a very nice lady named Sharon, who is also an avid cyclist. She said that she doesn't know why they promote Tasmania's highways as cycle tour routes - she feels they're very treacherous and dangerous, and advised that if we continued, we would not find shoulders further up either. She mostly cycles off-road. She said that some of Australia's states have great shoulders and they're wonderful for touring. Apparently, though, Tasmania, and the Great Coast Road (the other thing I was looking most forward to) are not. She says the Great Coast Road is very dangerous as well, with no shoulders and steep cliffs to fall off of. We won't be cycling that when we get to Melbourne either - we'll look for some other bike paths or safer roads and maybe try to get a vehicle for driving the Great Coast Road and have a look.

For now, we're staying in Swansea for a couple days, then taking the bus back to Hobart for one night. Hobart has some great parks and pathways to explore. We'll then take the bus up to Devonport for a day and a half and hopefully find some more great places to explore and cycle before taking the ferry over to Melbourne where we'll meet up with Brent's nieces. It's great to have options (and a VERY patient partner).