Tasmanian Times

A cycle tour

By Nay San

January 30^th, 2016

Summer plans

I can't quite recall what led me to decide to spend a holiday riding a 1200 km loop around Tasmania, all the while lugging around my own food, water, and shelter.

It may just have been that I had been spouting this idea left, right and centre as a summer plan, and as summer slowly creeped up (as annual events always do), I had told enough people I was going to do it—so I had to do it (I think this is called motivation via calling one's own bluffs).

But all in all, I'm really glad I did do it. Despite all the ups and downs (both emotional and literal), it was just one breathtaking scene after another, and then another just around the corner.

Hobart - Bicheno (days 1-5)

The ride out from Hobart to St Helens goes along the east coast, which meant that the terrain was almost entirely flat. Energised by our freshness, we made quite good progress along this portion of the trip. So much so that we were obliged to spend some of the time lounging around on beaches.

BICHENO - Launceston (days 6-8)

But our arrival in Bicheno had coincided with a heat wave that came through from the mainland. With temperatures on the road hitting 35 degrees before 11 am, we had to stop riding for at least a day. But thanks to our, um, leisurely beach stops, we were going to have to make up some time to meet Jules in Launceston on schedule.

So we did the 225-or-so km route from Bicheno to Launceston in just 3 days. Of course, with great fortune, this leg also coincided with our first set of hill climbs.

Luckily, what we found strategically located on our arduous journey was the Weldborough Hotel, whose rather appealing tagline was "Real Ales & Ciders, from every Tasmanian micro brewery". I suspect this is the reason why we found a hoard of bicycles parked outside.

Their tagline had indeed brought all the cyclists to their yard

Trying to find the next pub on the route

Launceston - Zeehan (Days 9-12)

There was no subtlety in just how much harder this next half of the trip was. As we headed towards Cradle Mountain, the hills got steeper and the overnight temperatures got a lot colder. But perhaps at the same time, this made each and every hill we conquered a cause for celebration—and celebrate we did, often to take a snack and photo break.

Zeehan - hobart (days 13-16)

After coming down from Cradle Mountain, the temperatures were once again reasonable.

And, the hills? Well, no, those didn't end quite just yet. But along my ride somewhere, I remember seeing an old Tasmanian tourism poster, which touted Tasmania as the "Switzerland of the South".

I'm not quite sure about other things, but just going on all the hills, lakes, and mountains, it sure really is like Switzerland on just these criteria, all of which brought me back some quite fond memories from my days there.