Motorcycle tour of Tasmania - off to a good start

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(Photos to come)

Right now (June 2008) it is freezing cold at home and I just found my travel journal which documents Lorenza and my trip around Tasmania in 1993. Why not add it to our travelblog!

We had planned our ride around Tassie, then put a deposit on the block of land which our house now sits. We were tossing up if we could still afford the Tassie motorcycle tour and luckily decided if we didn't go ahead and do it we may not get the chance for some time to come. We took the tour on board our much loved Italian motorcycles which we owned at the time - Lorenza with her Moto Morini 350 and me with the Moto Guzzi SP1000.

So, now on with the tour ...

Sydney to Eden, via Cooma

Off to a good start, on a cool, fine morning. Once we made it out of the Sydney traffic things settled in nicely on the expressway heading toward Goulburn. We had a breakfast stop at Collector at a fuel stop. We were entertained there by 5 year old Rebecca, the daughter of the owner. She showed us tough bikers all her dolls and teddy bears. She couldn't stay still and was full of 5 year old stories about the dolls and bears.

From Collector we headed to Cooma, via Queenbeyan and made it there just on lunchtime. Lorenza, thanks to her Dutch background, was drawn to go browsing in the Cooma Clog Shop. After that cultural experience we decided to call some friends, Graham and Rhonda, to see if they were home and up for some visitors. Luckily, the answer was YES! So, we took the ride down Brown Mountain to the coast. We made it to Eden, then Nethercote in good time (this was in the days before NSW was infested with fixed and mobile speed cameras).

We spent the night with Graham and Rhonda, plus their two boys, James and Alex. Graham and Rhonda were friends from our days with the Motorcycle Riders Association. When we last saw them they had no kids, now James was 4 and a half and Alex was 2 and a half. They are lovely young boys, open, honest and friendly. We had plenty of fun playing with both of them and getting to know them. Graham and Rhonda's place is very relaxed and their is a great bush view from the house. The track to get to the house was a shocker, with a wobbly old bridge, with a hairpin bend just just after the bridge, then you are greeted with a hill so steep it makes your heart sink. We thanked God it wasn't raining because the track is nothing but clay.

Goodbyes after a night in the shed (31/3/93)

After sleeping snug and warm in the shed, which was once Graham and Rhonda's home, we went to the house at about 8am. After a welcome hot shower, we breakfasted and talked until we decided to get going at about 11.30am. The downward slide toward the bridge was not as bad as my imagination had expected the night before. We left hoping that next time we visit we would be able to spend a few more days with them.

From Nethercote we cruised the highway to Cann River and secured a room in the Cann River Pub. We covered a huge distance today - 100kms! The wind was very blustery and Lorenza had a bit of a hard time on her much lighter motorcycle. My big lug of a Guzzi did not really get upset by the wind at all.

Cann River is a logging town, so not a good place to put on our "Save the trees" t-shirts. There are two mills here, one logging and one a chip mill, and the major traffic in town is guess what - logging trucks.

We cooked our dinner on the verandah outside our room on my faithful metho stove. The stove has covered many kilometres with me and has visited every state in Australia so far at least twice. It is funny how you get attached to things like a metho stove, but it is such a simple peice of equipment, but it brings to mind a lot of good memories every time I get it out to cook up a meal. After dinner we noticed 3 bikes pull up at the fuel stop opposite when we were off for a stroll. We had a chat to the riders after we noticed they had Tassie Seacat Stickers on their windscreens. They promised us we were in for a fun trip on the "Spew Cat" the following day across Bass Straight.

The blustering wind dropped off about 9pm and we hit the hay soon after.

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Photos

Rob & "Bruce the Goose"
"Bruce the Goose" = Rob's Moto Guzzi SP1000