What a fantastic
night in our B&B in Derby! While it was cold, rainy and windy outside we
had our cosy night in a warm bed, and we slept like babies. The next morning,
the weather was much better, so after a big breakfast - provided by the B&B
- we set off. While it was still a bit chilly, at least there was some sunshine
and it was fine for cycling! This was a day with some more serious hill-work,
we had 3 big hills to climb and a lot of smaller ones. After some months in the
saddle this would have been a walk in the park, but we're not as well trained
as we were and while it was no problem at all, it was a bit of work.
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| Uphill through magnificent Tasmanian rainforest |
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| Coffee break out of the wind, in the sun (which apparently didn't shine while I made the photo, but she did most of the time!) |
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| Incredible cycling scenery! We had been here before by car, but it is so much better on the bike. |
The reward was also
big however. It was a fantastic day on the bike, with long stretches of
Tasmanian forest - rough and pure - and picturesque rolling farmlands. Cows in
Tasmania get a lot of land to graze on, and honestly they do look "happy
and healthy"; they also look surprised when they see 2 cyclists passing
through... We had many confused-cow-looks. On this day, we had 2 of the best
breaks you can imagine, both in the sun and out of the wind (which had a high
chill-factor); the coffee break in the fields, with cows as an audience, and a
lunch break in a very typical Australian forest with high eucalyptus trees.
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| Our audience of healthy happy black cows |
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| It was fine weather, luckily no... ice! |
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| But at the top of the 600-something meters hill, it was very windy and chilly |
At the end of this
beautiful day, we arrived in St Helens and found ourselves a caravan park to
camp again. It was still very windy, but there wouldn't be more rain anymore.
In a caravan park you'll usually have a camp kitchen, so even when it gets a
bit cold you can cook and eat inside. There will also be good hot showers of
course, which are heavenly after such a day. We even considered to stay 2 days
in St Helens, and do a day trip to the Bay of Fires. The campsite was not that
nice however, and a bit pricey too, so we decided to stay for the night and
continue the next day.
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| Late lunch in nature, near Hall's Falls - sheltered from the wind and in the sun, fantastic |
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| Arrival at the East Coast, with St Helens waiting for us at the bottom of the downhill |
The idea was
however, to make it a very short day, and ride to Scamander - less than 20km -
and stay in the Scamander Sanctuary Park which looked very nice. So we took our
time in the morning, had a long breakfast in the sun (and out of the wind; it
had started to blow strongly again at night and did so for most of the day),
and started cycling around 10am. It was finally the right weather for shorts
and t-shirt cycling, hooray! The road was a bit narrow with no hard shoulder to
ride on most of the way, but then again there was little traffic so it was not
too bad. About halfway we stopped at a very attractive beach, and just enjoyed
the view, in the sun, for a while. We knew we had a very short riding day, so
we could take all the time we wanted. We continued, and despite the headwind we
arrived soon in Scamander.
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| Wonderful east coast |
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| No comment |
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| Shelly Point viewpoint |
While we did ride a
little, it was rather a rest day. We checked in, enjoyed sitting in the sun
with a cup of delicious coffee, had lunch, went for some groceries, did the
laundry, went for a hike on the beach and through the dunes, and made ourselves
a nice dinner on the camp BBQ with lots of veggies. There is no internet here;
my phone is on Vodafone, which has no network on most of the east coast
apparently, and the campsite's wifi is "broken". So another
disconnected day - really nothing wrong with that - it only gets the blog posts
online well after they were written.
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| Finally, a photo of the 2 of us together |
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| Admiring the big smashing waves |
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| Beautiful beach with mountain backdrop |
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| Final one for today |
