a tastE oF tassiE

difficulty. I have to admit to being a bit daunted by one of these roads which had a sign at the start warning that it was suitable for 4 wheel drive vehicles only. Well, we were no 4 wheel drive, but put the bike into Enduro mode and it can go anywhere. This particular route was a little more challenging than others, but no more potholed, corrugated, loose-gravelly or waterlogged than many we have encountered on previous rides.

The ferry crossing after a gravel road through the Tarkine and then across the Pieman River at Corinna took us on the smallest ferry we have ever been on. Absolutely no problems getting on and off with the bike. It was actually rather exciting!

by walking shorter distances and promising ourselves longer walks on rest days and when we come back again in the car. This trip was all about the bike.

We are both keen bushwalkers, however one of the challenges we encountered on this trip was navigating how we were going to do reasonable walks (often with steep ascents) in our heavy motorbike gear. We do carry helmet locks, so we eventually landed on locking our jackets onto the bike and leaving our helmets to lighten the load on our bodies. It was getting colder at this point, so sometimes we needed our jackets for the warmth. We often compromised

Our walk in Cradle Mountain was one such case - a shorter walk around a section of Dove Lake was nonetheless magnificent. We were quite amazed by the changes to the entrance to Cradle Mountain National Park since we were last there with its enormous visitor centre and the huge improvement the shuttle buses provide to the natural environment by restricting cars, buses (and bikes) from entering the park itself. We saw a wombat here and later when we were in Lake St Clair, we had the immense pleasure of watching an echidna saunter through the outside decking on the visitor centre.

Wildlife features heavily in Tassie. Sadly, all too often dead on the road. I can honestly say Tassie has to be the road kill capital of the world and of course on the bike you can often smell it way before you see it. We saw dead quolls, wombats, pademelons, wallabies, possums and even more devastatingly a couple of dead Tasmanian Devils. Many roads have severe speed restrictions from dusk till dawn but sadly it seems to have little effect. the end of the short forest walk was incredibly inviting. Apparently the caves are full of ancient indigenous artefacts and rock paintings.

The west side of the island is undoubtedly our favorite. We spent many days investigating here - feeling reluctant to leave it for a 3 day stay in Hobart. We did enjoy revisiting Salamanca Place and the markets on Saturday, Battery Point and Sandy Bay but after the magnificent wilderness and ancient forests, we were not sorry to be leaving the traffic, crowds and general busy-ness of a larger city again.

Lake Pedder and the Gordon Dam were next on the agenda. It rather amazed us that the first road into this area needed to be built in 1964 in order to construct the Gordon Dam which opened in 1978.

Our room at the Lake Pedder Wilderness Lodge provided a magnificent view of the lake. We took another gravel road to lead us to Junee Cave in South West National Park. The forest here was stunning, featuring the largest tree ferns I have ever encountered. It almost felt like a dinosaur was about to come crashing through the forest. The caves have an incredible 30km system, sadly only open to speleologists but the entrance at

We had been looking forward to our visit to Bruny Island since we first decided to go to Tasmania. The ferry ride over was no more than 20 minutes long and incredibly cheap - only $6.70 for a bike, a fraction of the cost of taking a car over. We had decided to stock up on food for the 2 night stay here, having heard that there was limited supermarket access so we were loaded to the gunnels with all of our gear and enough food to get us through. This turned out to be a bit of challenge as our accommodation was on a very wet, slippery, gravel road at the top of a hill and we had added significant weight by the time we stocked up on sufficient wine and beer to get us through. As soon as the bike was parked on an angle that we felt comfortable with, the heavens opened. And it didn’t stop for the next 24 hours. We fed the fireplace to warm us up and stayed in - lots of movies, games, reading etc. Amazingly this would be the only really solidly wet day we would encounter in the 4 week trip. Once we hit the eastern side of the