Tasmania UniTour 2009

Day 8 Dover to Cockle Creek

Aubin set out early from Geeveston and arrived at Julien’s place in Dover just as I was getting up. He rode the whole 22km with a sports bag over one shoulder, which made the ride somewhat lop-sided for him. We met Phil, a local Dover unicyclist who also races motorbikes, and showed him our 36ers. Aubin and I set out towards our final destination of Cockle Creek about 9:30am. Tynan’s ankles were still too painful for him to ride, so he bravely rode the first 50m down the driveway then retreated to the car.

Aubin and I rode together for the first part of the day, along more beautiful coastline. The first 20km were on sealed roads, ending in a long fast downhill to Southport. I waited at this intersection and soon after Karin, Tynan and Julien showed up in the support car, then Aubin rolled into sight. After a few snacks we set out again. Within minutes Aubin let out a yelp and stopped suddenly. He’d found a live rifle bullet on the side of the road, which he was delighted with. Further down the road what did I see shuffling along in the midday sunshine, but a wombat. It was beside the road wombling, or doing whatever it is that wombats usually do, until it noticed me and made a bee-line for a drainage pipe under the road. It would have been sweet to have gotten a photo, but Mr Wombat had other ideas and wasn’t feeling terribly photogenic.

Not long after I rode over the Lune River, singing “Lune River, wider than a mile, I’ll be crossing you in style…”.

Shortly after this musical interlude and the requisite photos the road turned to gravel. I stopped not far down the road at Ida Bay. Here the support car and supporters caught me and dished up lunch -  hamburgers from the pub at Southport, along with gatorade and gummy lollies. We ate lunch at the Ida Bay Touurist Railway, and got asked the usual unicycle-related questions. One lady, perhaps in shear amazement or possibly catatonia, just kept staring at us. She kept it up for what seemed like 5 minutes or more. It was a little bit odd.

After lunch the road was unrelentingly bumpy, and made finding a smooth patch of road to ride on challenging. However, we knew the end of the tour was near - all we had to do was to ride to the end of the road. More often than not I’d find myself on the wrong side of the road, on a thin strip of smooth dirt. This was fine most of the time, but back-fired on me once when a camper van was approaching from the rear and a logging truck from in front. I jumped off onto the side of the road rather than get squished between them.

15 bumpy kilometres later I rolled into Recherche Bay, a picturesque seaside hamlet and a harbour used by early French explorers of the region. There were a few beautifully situated but basic campgrounds along the beachside which limited campers to a generous one month stay. I soon arrived in Cockle Creek itself, a settlement of which there is very little left. The gravestones of some of the abandoned town’s residents and some large trees are about all that remains these days. Soon after Aubin crossed the Cockle Creek bridge and Tynan joined us for the final kilometre ride to the end of the road. The road is the furthest south that you can get in Australia. There was a sculpture of a whale to mark the end of the road, and many photos were taken of us on top of, around and beside said whale. This was it - both the end of the road and the end of Aubin’s Tasmanian Unicycle tour. Well done to all the riders and support people. Special thanks to Karin Adams-Gill, Barry Clearwater, Dana, Julien, Steve and Allan for making this tour possible. Maybe we’ll return at some point in the future and tour the west coast of Tasmania…. here’s hoping!

Written by Tony Melton.

Today’s distance: 45.81km (approx 20km of this was on bumpy gravel roads)

Riding time: 3:02:12

Average speed: 15.0km/hr

Maximum speed: 34.0km/hr