Tasmania - the last day.

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Day 15:

Leaving Launceston we stopped at a motorcycle shop for some bits & pieces. Very helpful staff who recommended a nearby cafe for breakfast - which was good. Out of town we were soon on country sealed roads. Farms are very NZ-like and also pretty green by Australian standards. Soon we were onto some gravel forestry roads which as usual were great (still early so quite cool conditions). As per normal we soon found a gravel road on our route with a locked gate. We routed our way around this finding some great narrow sealed country winding roads. Then we were back onto gravel roads before again coming across another locked gate - more re-routing. Instead of a 320km day we ended up with around 240kms. Arriving into Devonport around mid afternoon we found a self service car wash & we gave our bikes a good wash dislodging 15 days of Tasmania dust and mud.

We then spent a few hours in a nearby Hungry Jack's (Burger King) killing time and reminiscing about the 2 week ride. Around 5pm we went to the boarding area for the ferry and spent around an hour in a nearby pub where there was a group of Zephyr/Zodiac enthusiasts. 1950s to 1970s Zephyrs - very nostalgic. As it transpired they were waiting for the ferry too. A long wait in the boarding area from 7pm until around 8.45pm when we finally boarded and found our cabins (not an easy feat). A good meal in the on-board restaurant before a relatively early night for a surprisingly smooth overnight trip to Geelong.

Day 16:

Off the boat, Ross, Ian & Brenton went their own way - Ross to return his rental bike, Ian & Brenton to pick up Brenton's bag at the rental company and then to head North as they are both riding to Queensland. Bryan & I had breakfast in a Geelong cafe - before heading to our motel in Laverton near our storage. A gear sort out before taking our bikes back to the storage facility and Ubering back to the motel where we met Ross who had returned his rental bike for a rip-off experience charging for damage that really didn't exist.

In summary: 4300kms of great riding - some you wouldn't want to do again but most really enjoyable roads going through some really nice little towns many with some great architecture. We met some nice people most very helpful. Accommodation ranged from 4 star or maybe some close to 5 star to some that were struggling to make 1 star. We saw lots of wildlife, unfortunately many of them as roadkill. Some alive, mainly kangaroos which really we didn't want to see too closely, a few rabbits and some unidentifiable running animals. Roadkill were mainly wombats, quite a few Tasmanian Devils, a few Eastern Quolls (google them) and many squashed flat vulture feed.

Until the next trip.

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