Well, I must say the recliner seats are uncomfortable and I woke up quite a few times with sore arms (hard edges of the seat arms), also a sore back in the small of the back, the seats are not ergonomic, but all in all, better than paying for a shared cabin, they are quite expensive, not that these were cheap mind!
Anyway, I woke about 6am and had some breakfast at the onboard cafe, the outside coming into Devonport was looking gloomy.
I did what any Queenslander would do when first stepping on to Tasmanian soil. I went down to my bike and put on all my Thermal underwear (except pants)as there was nowhere to strip off down there 🙂 and rain gear and everything before leaving the boat 🙂
I still had not worked out which way to go, so I decided away from the rain was good. The forecast was rain for the west and dry in the east, so east I went. The hills around here looked nice until the clouds came down and the roads were not straight, as promised.
I was following the roads that headed to Port Sorrell via the coast and and stopped at Port Sorell to add the thermal undies, the cool was getting to me. I wanted to make a phone call to Optus about internet so needed to be somewhere in a town, I decided that George Town would do OK and I could be there after 9am. I headed south via Frankford and Glengarry then east to Exeter, all these roads were great county roads, everything was green and more cows and sheep than you could poke a stick at. I was going to cross the bridge over the river but decided to drop in to Beaconsfield for a quick shufti. This place has the gold mine that had a cave in and two weeks later some miners were rescued, this was a year or so back. The mine looked shut, but there were some staff around, so I just took a couple of photos and left.
After that a small bit of backtracking before crossing the river and heading up to George Town. This is where I contacted Optus and they activated my service, it would take a short while before that would come through. This looked a nice little town, but better seen in the dry and sun I reckon, especially with water 🙂
Next I headed west along a logging road to Bridport, they go quite fast and I was a dawdler as I wanted to look around. Compared to the outback, there are things to look at, so I was interested. A right turn at Bridport took me south to Scottsdale where I had a snack and then spotted a sign to the visitors centre. I had a look and a lady gave me a list of things that can be seen there and all the way to St Helens, what a bonus. First up was a park down the road which was a memorial to those who served in the armed forces and covered a number of wars. The old tree trunk had been carved by chainsaw and was beautifully done 🙂
Then just down the road is another life size carving of Simpson and his Donkey, an ANZAC legend who used his donkey to move wounded men from Anzac Cove. For those interested here is a web page about him, it makes for very interesting reading
Funnily enough there is nothing about this man or his acts around the carving itself, not even a plaque with his name, very strange?
On the way out of town was a covered area, as it was spitting it was an ideal spot to have an attempt at using the internet, about the only thing that was active was the ducks looking for tucker, there is no Optus network out this way, bummer 😦
Heading west again and near the town of Ringarooma is a turnoff to the small township of Legerwood, you cannot miss the turnoff as it has signposts and one of these pointing the way.
The town had a number of local people who gave their lives during the first war and as a memorial; they planted a tree for each of them. But, recently the trees had to be removed as they were dangerous, so they commissioned a chap to carve some statues, they are extraordinary and very well done, here is a sample of what is there.
I continued on to Ringarooma as it was on the way to Ralphs Falls and spotted this on the way, this is the first example of a Lovers Lane I have seen in the wild, outside of movies and theme parks. I waited there for a while, but had no luck, the only action was a crow chewing some road kill.
As I went through the town I was pulled over by a local chap who said the road up was wet gravel and slippery, so I turned around, I had mistaken this falls for the one further down the road which was all sealed. There was some nice twisty country roads to play on though as I continued on to Derby.
Derby is a tin mining town and as I am all mined out I just looked at the fish painted on the rocks on the southern outskirts. It has me beat how it was done, probably ropes and harness etc.
The some more twisty winding roads through forests, much like rainforests with all the ferns lining the road, you have to be careful of logging trucks through here.
On again and another spot to stop is the Little Plains lookout. Here you can see the changing landscape as the logging is cleared, replanted etc, also there is grazing land amongst it all.
More great countryside flows by as I head to a place called St Columba Falls, this is off the highway a bit and is tight and narrow winding road with hairpins and is real fun, watch out for oncoming though! When you get there, there is a bit of a walk to the viewing platform but it is very peaceful, I looked for Platypus in the creeks, but did not see one. There is also natural landslip and trees falling over which are just cut through and left natural as possible.
I was becoming a bit tired by now, a bit cold as well, so as it was half three, I decided to finish for the day and headed for St Helens. It was a nice little town on the coast, which had no Optus network, but because of the weather I opted for the backpackers as I wanted to dry out. It happened to be across the road from the pub and after having a hot shower (I had not had a shower since leaving Port Fairy, whew!) and a nice pasta meal I went over for a beer or two and it was happy hour, with bar snacks 🙂 This is where I met John, he was from a town called Ulverstone near Devonport, he and I had some beers for a while, before the rest of his soccer team mates turned up and more beer was consumed until they closed up, then it was down the road to a bikers club for more beer and rum. Twinkles had his fingers painted pink for the Glen McGrath cancer fund and as he was a big man, no one would take that issue up with him 🙂
Day – 295km
Trip – 22,814km
TravellingStrom 