#43 West Coast of Tasmania |406 km|

And now for the really good bit – a challenging ride in an environment that is remote and rewarding in its natural beauty – this is what cycle  touring is all about.

Route Maps:  Zeehan to Corinna; Corinna to Arthur River; Arthur River to Wynyard; Wynyard to Penguin; Penguin to Devonport

They call the road the Western Explorer.  It’s mostly dirt – fine white dust-type dirt, and rocky pebbly-type dirt in equal measure, through dense temperate forest for the most part that turns into open heath-land in the Tarkine region (“Tar-kyne”) further north.

Corinna has that fin de siècle, edge-of-the-world quality from another era about it – a rustic wilderness camp on the edge of the river deep in the forest in the middle of nowhere, peopled by transients all going to or coming from somewhere and all with stories to tell: enchanted, I resolved to stay the night.  So I pleaded poverty, and got an affordable rate on a tent site for cheap (but spent a hell of a lot on dinner and grog anyway – the most generously-proportioned Fettucine Marinara I’ve ever had, it was, garnished with a full salmon fillet and plenty of prawns, scallops and squid, in a delicate tomato/ coriander broth).

I shared the evening with my camp-neighbours, 2 young couples – mid-20s, from WA and Queensland, who’ve been touring for 18 months, chasing waves, scuba diving and generally living the dream – and with Steve, the ferryman, who with his partner Sandi has found work at Corinna for a few months on their own Australian odyssey in an old bus from their base at Bega on the NSW South coast.  Oh, and a lot of wildlife too, such as potoroos, wallabies, bettongs, quolls… and this possum.

I just couldn’t get away next day.  Well, I did try to, but I only managed 8km because the mother of all hills stood in my way.  I ran out of oomph on my first attempt going up it and completely lost steerage-way, causing the front end of the bike to rear up, which in turn caused the trailer to twist sideways, flinging me off the bike in the process.  OK, that wrenched my knee – painful – but the real damage was to the trailer itself, which broke one arm of the shaft that attaches to the bike and was therefore useless.  I was out there for 3 hours unsuccessfully trying out various repairs, until at 11 o’clock along came Pauline and Mick heading south in their Wicked camper-ute, and kindly took me and all my gear back into Corinna with them.

And then I got doubly lucky, because another traveller just passing through, Chris, saw what was happening and basically just took over and sorted it all out for me.

His job is as an abseiler – you know, that guy you see hanging off a rope doing repair jobs on really tall buildings in Melbourne – and he put his excellent practical knowledge to good use in the Corinna workshop, cutting, grinding, sawing and pot-riveting spare parts and a tree branch to fashion a new joint for the shaft.  Thank you Chris.

 Next time around, the next day, I made no mistake and did the hill in three trips with three roughly equal loads.  First the generator, bungeed onto the rear rack, then the panniers and lastly, the trailer (minus generator).  This rigmarole alerted me to the fact that the trailer really is an inefficient way to haul weight around on a bike, as it was by far the hardest trip back up that hill.  I consequently did the rest of the trip all the way to Devonport with the generator strapped onto the rear pannier rack, and although there were still a few problematic hills to conquer, I managed them all fully loaded on the first go.

One slight problem though.  I’d left my handlebar bag in the back of my rescuers’ vehicle, and didn’t realise it until they were already well and truly on their way out of Corinna to points unknown, and so now I’m missing my phone, sunnies, card reader, power wall and, most importantly, my journal.  But thankfully as of right now it looks like I’ll be getting them all back again after all.  Realising that Corinna Wilderness Camp is the only point of connection between us, I had given the story to Ashley there on reception and asked him to pass on my details should they happen to call in, and I just received an email from Ashley (on the 29th, 5 days later) that they had indeed called and left an email address and phone number, so now we’re back in contact again.  Thanks for that Ashley.

I stupidly left Corinna without topping up my water supply.  It’s ‘only’ 120 km to Arthur River, but, boy, are those hard kilometers on a bicycle and I nearly perished!  With my average speed down to 17 kph, and battery range down to 40 km, I needed 2, 2-hour and 1, 1-hour charging sessions (without any shade), meaning I out there in the sun for over 10 hours and dangerously short of drinking water.  I managed to cadge 2 x 600ml bottles of chilled water from a passing car at the first charging stop, and at the second, 6 young gung-ho guys in 3 well-equipped 4WDs, gave me fully 6 litres of cold-ish water, which totally solved the problem.   I figure I drank 8 litres on that 120 km journey, and left Corinna with only 3!

The other incident of note on the way to Arthur River concerned a rather large black snake.  The first I saw of it was a fleeting glimpse from less than 2 m away, as it reared back from a striking pose and slunk off into the bushes, having decided, I suppose, not to strike at me after all.  Gulp.

I made it into the settlement of Arthur River just before 7pm, after 6 hours in the saddle and 5 on the charger, just in time to get a steak sandwich and chips before the only takeaway in town (the only store in town, full stop) closed for the day, and then it was another one of those laissez faire campgrounds for the night (I even had to rouse the caretaker/ manager at 9 am next day in her pajamas and dressing gown to pay my $10).

The ride from Arthur River to Stanley was fairly uninteresting, with the open heath land of the Tarkine slowly giving way to grain and stock paddocks and finally into small farm allotments closer to Stanley.

I continued on along the north coast to Wynyard and stayed overnight in the pub there.  Wynyard is situated in a really nice setting along the banks of a river just before it empties out into the sea and could have been an attractive town, but they’ve gone and messed it all up, with awful cheaply-constructed and unmaintained buildings along the shoreline and no shore access at all.  A shame, really.

The next day was only a short day, riding-wise, and I stayed at Penguin in a cabin in the caravan park: did some long-overdue washing, had a swim and worked on the last blog (without the benefit of my journal, so I’ll update it when – if – I finally do get it back).  Never did get to see any of those little Penguins wading back into shore at dusk, though.

And another short day’s riding bought me into Devonport at 11.30am on Sunday, 28 January, with a whole day spare on Monday to sort out a new phone SIM card etc. (but maybe I can postpone all that now, after reading the email from Ashley that I may be getting my stuff back after all).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-ends-

#43  Tasmania West Coast:  Zeehan to Davenport |406 km|