Tasmania UniTour 2009

Day 4 by Tony

We awoke to the sounds of Aubin and Mr Impossible making an extra early start under clear blue skies.

Tynan, Nick, Sid and I set out somewhat later. The first 9km to Orford slipped by pretty quickly. I stopped for a stretching break and to take photos on a jetty at the river at Orford.

We turned off onto a gravel road which we would follow for the next 29km. The Wielangta Forest Road turned out to be quite a tough choice, as the road surface was rutted, pot-holed and rocky.

Often the smoothest part of the road was on the very far left or if you were game enough to ride on the wrong side of the road, as I was on this little travelled road, on the very far right. The roughness of the road made it tough to use the high gear on my Schlumpf 36” on the flat and downright scary on the many descents. Progress was pretty slow on this road, with some riders opting to walk up the many steep hills. Karin mentioned a rainforest walk which we must do up ahead, and we planned to stop there.

Further down the road Tynan and I finally caught up with Aubin and went on to try and track down Mr Impossible. Some time later we found his unicycle parked at the start of a walking track but no sign of Mr I. We wondered whether he’d been abducted by aliens.

I did some stretching on the boggy ground, and then continued onwards. We scaled a 3 kilometre long hill which reduced me to walking and reached a scenic lookout spot for lunch. Lunch was delicious as usual (thanks Karin!). Thankfully Mr Impossible showed up for lunch and hadn’t been adducted by aliens. As I munched on my wrap I felt a sting on my foot and discovered a leech biting me through my sock. I flicked it off and wondered where it came from. After lunch the gravel road and hills continued until we finally reached Kelevie. My average speed for the first 40km of the day’s ride was a measly 14.7km/hr. I paused at an intersection to see which way to go, looked down and saw a

large pool of blood on my thigh. Arrgh! Another leech! Minutes later I discovered another leech on my other leg, and blood streaming down. It was kinda gruesome, but not painful. I never would have expected leeches in Tasmania – I thought they were a tropical species. I must have picked them up when I was stretching on the boggy ground earlier.

Some kilometres later, after a couple of false starts, we reached the tarmac proper. Hurrah – it was really nice to feel smooth concrete under my tyre once again.

We now headed west towards Sorrell on the main road, some 40km away. While it was nice riding on the sealed road, we were facing a headwind the rest of the day.

A local unicyclist managed to track us down on the road, after his friend had seen us earlier on the Wielangta Rd. He turned out to be Mark from Pop-Eyed, a talented acrobatic street performer I had met in Auckland a few years back. Small world!

I screamed stop for icecream in Fawcett, and was quickly joined in my consumption of frozen dairy products by Tynan, Nick and Aubin. As we continued we could see Hobart in the distance. Traffic became noticably heavier as we got closer to the Big Smoke. We turned away from H-town and headed towards Richmond. The last 10km stretch was up a long gradual uphill, with the ever-present headwind. I found this last section very taxing as the gradient and headwind made it too slow to use my high gear, but left me spinning like a hamster in the low gear. I eventually passed Sid and his squeaking brake pads, and crested the final hill. We regrouped in Richmond for photos riding across Australia’s oldest bridge in both directions, then promptly decided that beer was necessary before continuing to the campground, which was 2km out of town.

…

I left my uni at the door, but Tynan wheeled his uni right up to the bar where we got Wizard Ale (this is real beer!) and Boags Draught and stuffed them into our camelbaks. We cracked them open once we reached the campsite, and boy did they taste good!

Today’s Distance: 80.27km

Riding time: 5:15:54

Average speed: 15.2km/hr

Maximum speed: 31.0km/hr

end of day four