Tasmania UniTour 2009

Day 7 - Hills Vs Ankles

Chaz the dog was very excited about the day`s ride and ran along beside us as we left Aubins farm. This elicited spirited responses from every single dog along the road. Being a rural area, there were dogs at virtually every house we passed. Chaz enthusiastically barked at, sniffed or challenged every one of them. After several kilometres of this performance Chaz was taken home in the car. By this stage we`d reached the first hill of the day. It was a hill Aubin had been dreading, but it turned out to be not nearly as steep or as long as rumoured. I had had knee pain on the previous riding day, so I was a little aprehensive as to whether it would reappear on the hills today. Aubin and I rode it all the way to the top for 4 kilometres with no stops nor knee pain. Tynan`s ankles were giving him a lot of pain, so he was forced to walk many of the day`s hills.

We continued to our morning tea stop at Glo Cafe in Huonville. The owner, Lou Gerraty, made us Energy Juice (carrot, beetroot and ginger) for free and we had delicious berry cake too. Aubin set out early towards Geeveston. This section was relatively flat and followed the Huon River for a long way. Tynan and I caught Aubin in Franklin and rode along the picturesque riverbanks towards Geeveston. There were many beautiful spots overlooking the river and I got a few great reflection shots.

Being the Apple Isle, we rode through many apple orchards today. There were apple trees growing wild by the side of the road, and I stopped to pick some - they were delicious. Geeveston soon rolled into view, and we parted company with Aubin who was staying with Christian, a schoolfriend for the night. At the cafe Tynan and I stopped at for lunch it seemed virtually everyone had either seen us arriving or had read about us in the previous day`s newspaper. Clearly our fame had spread to this part of Tasmania well before we had. We had our photograph taken, and our unicycles, still parked outside, were much discussed.

After lunch the hills came back with a vengence. I gave Tynan a pull up one of the hills, after remembering how Beau Hoover pulled me the hills in Laos after I had similarly injured my ankle. This helped but the hills just kept on coming and eventually Tynan couldn`t turn the pedals one rotation without extreme ankle pain and packed it in for the day. This left just me to finish the day`s ride to Dover. There was another hill 10km from Dover, finishing the day as it started - with a hillclimb. This hill was actually quite steep and windy as opposed to the first hill of the day which was merely long, but of low gradient. I was determined to ride to the top without stopping. Halfway up I thought my hopes would be dashed by tree trimmers blocking the road, but luckily they waved me through without having to stop. My reward for reaching the top was a wonderful downhill on the other side. It was a really good gradient for the Schlumpf’s high gear and a joy to ride. Not long after I arrived at Julien’s house in Dover.

Once again Karin made us an excellent meal of pumpkin soup and garlic bread, followed by apple and rhubarb crumble - yum! This blog entry was written on Julien’s French Mac, with a whacky keyboard, so it took rather longer than usual due to numerous typos. Keys certainly ain’t where they used to be round here!

Today’s distance: 65.99km

Riding time: 3:45:34

Average speed: 17.5km/hr

Maximum speed: 33.3km/hr