Tour of Tassie 2018

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Part 1 getting to the Apple Isle


1st day Getting there,  Adelaide – Horsham – Melbourne  –  Devonport

I’ve done Adelaide to Melbourne in a day quite a few times before, it’s a long boring ride but very doable. I decided with the 5:30pm checkin for the Spirit of Tasmania there was no point in busting my arse and chancing something going wrong so I decided to break the ride in Horsham for the night then head off through the Grampians on the way to Melbourne, that was the plan anyway. ........................................

The week leading up to leaving Adelaide the forecast for those 2 days was climbing higher and higher I rang the pub I was booked into and asked was there any chance of a early check in, all good, anytime after 10:00am


Day 1 Home (Adelaide to Horsham)





I was all packed up the night before, up at 4:00am, down to the gym for a walk, light back/core session and a stretch before breakfast and a shower.

By 6:15 I was riding out my driveway Horsham bound, the temperature was already warm but not unpleasant, by Murray Bridge it was starting to warm up and at about 8:00 am I pulled over at Coonalpyn for a stretch, coffee and another look at the Silo Mural, it was already 27 degrees



Back on the bike, about a ½ hour up the road I saw a couple of former work colleagues so stopped and said g’day,  a further ½ hour on and it was time quick fuel/stretch/rehydration stop at Bordertown, the temperature was already over 30 at just after 9:00 am

Back on the bike and it was bloody hot, by the time I got to Nhill I had to get my helmet and jacket off for a while and drink up.

Just after Midday I rolled into the White Hart Hotel in Horsham, it was already 36 degrees, I tucked the bike away in the grog shed for the night and spent the next ½ hour in a tepid shower followed by a cold lemon squash and a attempted walk down the main shopping strip, @ 38 degrees and windy that lasted about a whole 5 minutes.






2nd day getting there,  Horsham to the Spirit of Tasmania

After a very hot night with just a fan in the room I headed down to the gym about 150 meters away at 4:30am, I couldn’t get the bike out of the shed until 7:00, by then I had emptied my room and had all my gear outside ready to load up and go.





Nothing other than Macca’s was open at 7:00 so I headed straight to Ararat for a refuel then a feed, from there it was one more stop for a stretch at Rockbank on Melbourne’s outskirts.
The ride into Melbourne started off pretty easy then I hit the Westgate Carpark, FFS, why have an “expressway” if it doesn’t move, normally I’d have filtered but with the Bandit’s “fat arse” fitted to carry all of the wet weather/cold weather gear I thought I might need it wasn’t possible a lot of the time.

After a wrong exit to try and avoid the gridlock I ended up trying to negotiate my way through the CBD, other than plenty of scantily dressed eye candy on a hot Melbourne’s day it was a bastard of a crawl. Finally I got out near my meet up spot with Bazza (Anytime Fitness Gym, St Kilda) refuelled and hit the gym showers.

Feeling very refreshed I spoke with the manager and ended up leaving all of my riding gear hanging up in there airing out while I turned the Bandit into a Chinese laundry to dry out my skins and towel





Soon after Bazza arrived on the Queen Mary



Then a call from Spanna to say he couldn’t meet us for lunch (work got in his way), something about a busted boiler.

Baz and I found a nice cafe for lunch, then a few cold squaush/lemon lime bitters and a nearby local, madmax and mrs madmax (Kim) arrived after a hour or so for a catch up as well, so much for a attempted Bandit meet, there was my Bandit with 3 varieties of BMW.

Not long before 5:30 and escorted by madmax and Kim we departed St Kilda for Station Pier and our ride to the Apple Isle

1 Bandit, 3 Bavarians



Our room for the night



Melbourne skyline from the Spirit







A passing container ship in Port Phillip Bay



We were blessed with a very calm trip, great buffet feed and a few cold beers were also enjoyed

Ewok1958 wrote:Excellent finale Chook - you broke the restraint getting to eat though, you must have been hungry! 

Maybe I should have stayed restrained, I put on about 3kg on that trip then another 2 over Xmas/New Year, it's taking longer than that to get rid of it

Still got Port Melbourne - Tullamarine - Geelong - GOR - Mt Gambier to Adelaide to go yet

Sorry 2WA, I just realised I should have done a short intro to start the thread, all of Part 1 is on Page 2 as well, it shouldn't go too many pages I hope, this will most likely be it

Part 11, Back on the Big Island

Port Melbourne – Tullamarine - Geelong

I woke while it was still dark, had a look out the window and I could see the lights of Suburban Melbourne stretching around the coastline towards Geelong. I’d had a pretty good sleep and was looking forward to picking up my Daughter to share the ride home with her.

Dressed, Coffee and soon waiting in the lounge for departure with Baz, this was nearly it for another interstate trip.



We docked and were off the boat just before 6:00 am, we parked up, did a sort of or gear and said our goodbyes, Baz was heading for Eden, I had 2 stops before I got to Tullamarine, 1 at the gym in Essendon where I had a pretty good workout and a shower before heading to Essendon Fields to post home the contents of one pannier to make room for Kaylah.

For someone not at all familiar with Tullamarine, getting in the right lane to find the T4 carpark ended up harder than it should have, luckily I got it right at the 2nd attempt.
Kaylah’s flight was running a bit late which had bought me a bit of extra time.

She landed about the time I parked up and by the time she got to the luggage collection area I’d already found the makeshift cardboard box “suitcase” we unpacked and while Kaylah went off to change into riding gear I dismantled the suitcase and binned it.

Iit was already getting pretty hot and humid. We had thought about doing some city sightseeing but decided to just head straight for Geelong and our airBnb room for the night.
We headed out of Tullamarine for the mundane ride along the Tullamarine Freeway, Western Ring Road and Princes Freeway. We pulled off at Laverton for fuel and lunch, I was getting pretty hungry with just a coffee on the boat 6 hours earlier.

It was starting to get pretty hot and uncomfortable and we were looking forward to the end of riding for the day.

We arrived in Geelong about 1:00, rode along the foreshore, past the CBD and then the 2 streets back from the Esplanade to our digs for the night. We were staying in an airBnb where you just rent a room and get to use the basic facilities, the host had no vehicle so it included lock up garage for the Bandit. The place was less than 500m from the main shopping mall and less than that from the foreshore. We had detailed instructions how to get in, open the garage etc, our host wasn’t due home until after 8:00pm.

We unpacked, showered and relaxed for a bit, I decided I could lighten the load even more than I already had so we went for a walk around the CBD, posted some more luggage home and sussed out somewhere to go for tea, no cheap pub/club meals in Geelong!!

We headed back to the house and cooled off, grabbed a afternoon nap and soon enough it was time to head out for tea, Hogs Breath was our place of choice, much dearer than Adelaide pubs, much cheaper than Geelong pubs. It was a great feed.

A bit after 8:00 we got to meet our host when she got home from work, Camellia is a masseuse and we had mentioned the possibility of a massage if I needed/wanted one, yep, after nearly 2 weeks away on the bike II was definitely feeling I could benefit from some muscle knots getting a workout. She has a studio set up with screens in her living room looking through floor to ceiling glass onto a nice patio and garden.

I said I’d go the full hour, wow, what a talented lady, she used mostly elbows and forearms to knead out every tight spot on my body as well as stretched my limbs further than I would of thought possible. The hour was up and it felt much sooner than that so I went for another ½ hour, I slept like a baby that night. Usually I am sore the day or 2 days after a massage, not this time, fantastically relaxed, loose and pain free, the next day’s riding was easier than the last week had been.

Sorry for the lack of photos, none taken by either of that day.

Part 12; Dad and Daughter ride the  Great Ocean Road

Geelong – Great Ocean Rd – Mt Gambier



Kaylah and I were up, packed, loaded and on the road about 6:00am, we wanted to hit the GOR before the hoards of tourists spoilt it, a bit after 6:30 we were in Torquay having breakfast, by just after 7:00 we were on the road headed for our first break in Lorne, then another quick break in Apollo Bay.

It was already starting to warm up but the temperature quickly dropped as we headed up into the hills, we even had a bit of drizzle to content with at one stage. Soon enough we’d seen coast again, then back up to Levers Hill, then back down to more spectacular ocean views.

We managed to stop for a few photo opportunities along the way as we stopped off at Gibson Steps, bypassed the 12 (?) Apostles stop, too much of a pain with the bike and riding gear, we stopped at Loch Ard Gorge then onto Port Campbell for a coffee.























We missed the London Bridge turn off but stopped at the Bay of Martyrs for a photo opportunity, while we were there a elderly Japanese man got pretty excited over the Bandit and his family asked could he have a photo with it, little did I know while this was happening Kaylah was videoing it and laughing here head off?

Back on the bike and heading for Warnambool for fuel and lunch, we were both over take away so we settled on fresh rolls and sliced turkey from Woolies, bargain, less than $5 for lunch for 2!!

Back on the bike and it was getting hot, Mount Gambier and a night with a retired former work colleague was our destination, about 3:30 we finally road into Simmo’s for the night, Kaylah and I unpacked and road down to the gym for a walk and a stretch before heading back to shower and enjoy my mate’s hospitality, BBQ, beer for me, beer then wine for Brian and wine for Kaylah, yep that 16 year old that a lot of you met in Parkes is now 20 and loves a wine of 3!

After a pleasant evening we headed for our rooms (it was nice to have a firm Queen bed each that night  ) ready for the last day of my Tassie trip.

Leaving from Geelong makes quite a difference to the traveling time .

Part 13, heading for home and trip summary

We had originally intended on riding home via the Coorong on the Princes Highway (Hwy 1) along the Coorong, either route from Mt Gambier to Adelaide is very lacking in corners but that one has less towns, less traffic etc.

The forecast was for rain and Thunderstorms, particularly closer to the coast so the inland route it was. Our destination was forecasting close to 40 deg C so it was going to be a mixed bag with the weather.



We left Brian’s house in Mt Gambier about 7:15, did a lap of the Blue Lake...



..... and then checked a couple of other town attractions out, called into my favourite local cafe for breakfast then we headed off.

It was overcast but a fairly comfortable temperature. We had a couple of light showers around Nangwarry and then again near Penola, we hadn’t put the wet weather gear on and so far so good, every time we had a shower, we had dried out 5 minutes later.
I hadn’t planned on stopping before Keith but as we rode into Naracoorte down it came, anyone that knows me knows I won’t stop at a On The Run (OTR) unless I have to, well this was one of those times, we parked up, grabbed our wet weather gear and headed inside for a coffee and another layer of clothes.

There didn’t appear to be any break in the weather coming too soon so we braved the wet and headed off again, about 20 minutes in the rain had eased to just the occasional shower, by the time we turned onto the Dukes Hwy at Keith the rain was pretty much gone but it was humid and getting very hot. We stopped at Tintinara to peel off the plastics, a quick check on the BOM app and we found it was already in the high 30’s, no wonder we’d been sweating in the waterproofs.

After a nice break and a bite to eat we hopped back on and headed for home, at Tailem Bend I knew it was going to be close with fuel to home and with no Fuel available without leaving the South Eastern Freeway we stopped again, it was stinking hot, already 40 out there.

With the bike refuelled and us as rehydrated as we couild be we headed off on the 95km’s to home. It wasn’t bad while we were moving but when we hit suburbia and traffic lights it was F******* aweful, the last 10-15km couldn’t finish quick enough, wed were being cooked on hot roads surrounded by hot cars in 40 degree heat      

We finally rode in, a quick check of Trip B, 4273km since I’d rolled out of my carport nearly 2 weeks earlier.



Would I do it again?

- In a heartbeat, who’s coming with me? When can we leave?

What did we do right?

- AirBnb in Hobart and Launceston, dirt cheap with everything you need, a house/appartment/cottage is a really good place to base yourself for 2 + nights

- Cabin accommodation on the boat

- Honestly, most things worked out pretty good

What did we do wrong?

Nothing major, but we could have got a lot more out of the trip

- Totally underestimated the time we would need to do and see what we wanted to see, there is heaps of new things to see and do Trip 2 as well as a lot of awesome roads that need re riding

- We should have based ourselves in Waratah for at least 2 nights and seen more of the NW

- We stayed in Queenstown, awesome views, quirky old architecture, friendly people but it was our dearest accommodation (still only $60 p/n) and the choices of food both in the pub and the takeaway shop weren’t at all appealing, next time Straun will get a go

- Should have spent one full day and 1 or 2 nights at Port  Arthur

- Should have done the Strathgordon road, that would have added another day

- Should have based ourselves in Oatlands for a night or 2 and done the lake country from there

- Should have allowed for a overnighter somewhere on the East Coast heading from  Hobart up to Launceston

That would all mean another 6-7 nights, I reckon 15-16 nights over there would be spot on

Any regrets?

- None at all, we learnt a lot and we’ve left a lot of new stuff to do as well as revisit some of the great rides/things to see.

Seriously, who’s coming next trip, I’m thinking perhaps November 2020?

Plenty of time for everyone to arrange time / save up etc.

 Great write up .

Good summary and observations Chook. That riding in extreme heat sucks. It's one of the reasons I ditched the bikes for the convertible. At least, I can put the roof up and turn the aircon up. Soft I know, but comfy. 

Cann River

Spirit of Tassie car park

Waratah
more to come

Strahan



Queenstown

Ouse


Launceston



These pics are not in date order

Richmond Bridge






Tasman Arch




Lilydale






I'll go again on the next trip down there.

  Some familiar places from my last visit there