I dropped the bike today 😦 But, after nearly 24,000km it had to happen, but that happened later in the day, read on!
After a good nights sleep, I woke to another great day, what a bonus, two in a row. It was still cool, only 6C or so but dry is always good 🙂 I packed up and headed away, my first stop was the bits I had passed yesterday on the way in, at Eaglehawk Neck.
I grabbed some breakfast from the ‘not’ Devils Kitchen on the left. They normally parked at the Blowhole, but it was closed for roadwork’s, so I missed out on that one.
The Devils Kitchen itself is just a cave that turned into a tunnel then eventually it collapsed leaving a large channel through the cliff. This is quite a drop down to the ocean, about 100m or so.
Then there is a viewing platform for a nice rugged coastline shot.
Then the Tasman Arch.
After that at Eaglehawk Neck itself is the infamous ‘Dog Line’. In this photo of a photo, you can see the narrow neck of land, that is where the dogline was placed, also with platforms in the bay with dogs on them.
There was a small museum in the old quarters and a walk down to the monument at the dogline itself.
I continued on back towards Hobart and on the way collected another sign for my ‘do not run over or into’ collection 🙂
Back in Hobart I stopped at Bellerive just to check email and update the blog etc, I spent a pleasant hour in the sun before heading west.
This next shot was a sign built into the hill for the next Hamilton Show in 2009, quite inventive I thought.
The countryside was quite nice, the roads were good and eventually I got to one of the hydro dams and power generating plants, you can see all the pipes which are used to channel all the water down.
After leaving here I stopped to get a photo of a sign that is common, but I had a car behind me so when I slowed down too much and moved off the bitumen, this is what happened 😦 In the last shot you can see the big notch in the edge which my front wheel fell into, the people behind stopped and gave me a hand up, so no damage done, not even to my dignity 🙂
Oh, by the way, the sign shows a long stretch of twistys, but that is usually all you get, a sign before they start and that is all.
Further on up the road was a place called The Wall, this is going to be a 350m carving out of Huon Pine in panels about 10ft tall and 4ft wide. No cameras are allowed inside, which did not stop me, but I have decided not to post any of the wall, as they are trying to make a living and do not get any grants. Beware though, the road in is atrocious and is loose gravel. The only photo I will post is a 3D effort of some clothes he carved. I am not an expert of anything to do with art, but these are well worth the look. Everything you see is single pieces of wood except for the fork, spade and saw blade.
Onwards into the Franklin – Gordon wilderness area, the views are incredible and so are the curves. The sign is what I would normally see, there are no indicators of any hairpin curves or any bends what so ever, just slow down if there is a corner, it could be anything!
And eventually I arrived in Queenstown around 6pm or so and grabbed a tent site, I had an easy quiet night, writing a bit of bull, watched an episode of True Blood and read a bit of book 🙂
Day – 388km
Trip – 23,996km
TravellingStrom 