A slow start this morning, I left Orford slightly after 8am. I had only one place I had to go and it wasn’t far north, Swansea. I had no particular plan after than other than having to be back in Devonport by 6pm or so to get back on the Spirit of Tasmania. After an absolutely beautiful ride up the east coast I arrived at Swansea about 10am and had breakfast at a pop up Art Gallery. I had a nice chat to the staff there who suggested that the Lake Leake Highway was a favourite among motorcyclists, so why not.
The road was more open than some I’d travelled on but it was sweeping curve after sweeping curve, not technical but bags of fun. It got me to the Midland Highway slightly south of Campbell Town and I decided to turn south towards Hobart again. I decided to do a bit of sight seeing and stopped in at Ross to have a look around. It was a lovely old town with a bridge built by convicts and the Ross Female Factory
Photos taken I then went further south to Oatlands, had a look around and got some fuel. There’s an old stone windmill in Oatlands looking very out of place in the middle of town but certainly constructed of the same materials as most of the buildings in the main street.
I travelled a bit further south and then turned off the Midland Highway on to the Highland Lakes Road through Bothwell. Another amazing piece of tar with little traffic saw me wind my way up the mountains to the Central Higlands and the Great Lake. Absolutely beautiful scenery greeted me as well as some sensational gravel roads that didn’t slow me down one bit other than to take some snaps.
The last part of this road wound down a steep mountain and delivered me soon after to Deloraine where I stopped at a local bakery and ate a Venison Pie, some cake and drank some coffee. This must have been a popular roué for motorcycles, many passed me as I sat there for about 45 minutes chatting with some locals about the area.
Lunch done it was time to start making my way towards Devonport. I rode past a couple of turnoffs to cradle mountain which I had seen from every angle in the last two days and almost took the 95k trip in for a closer look but decided and early arrival at Devonport was more appropriate.
I arrived at Devonport about 4pm and skyped the family to show them the boat and the queue. Then I lined up with the other bikes getting on for the trip back to Melbourne and collected a number of other strange looks. After 800k’s yesterday and about 500 today I’d been through most of the places others had taken a week to see and my trip from Melbourne back to Newcastle via Cann River planned tomorrow really had them scratching their heads. The furthest north any of the guys I spoke to were trying for was Yass straight up the Hume.
Well, we all ride motorcycles for different reasons. I had dinner with a couple of guys who had been riding as much dirt as they could find for a week, one from Melbourne on a WeeStrom and the other his mate from Lismore who was riding a GS800.
The shared cabin was full this trip over, the seas calm but slightly rougher than on the way over. In any case I got a reasonable night’s sleep knowing that some day I’d be returning to Tassie to spend a bit more time riding around and perhaps having a crack at an SS1600.