Louise Heywood's Blog

Day 8 –  Straight off the Boat

Total riding: 132km, ascent 1,900m

So we had the big OS trip last night and here we are in the Apple Isle. The crossing was pretty calm which I was very grateful for after a few celebratory drinks in the bar and tastings of local cheese and chocolate which could have been rather ugly. The crew on the Spirit of Tasmania were fantastic. We had a couple of stationery bikes set up on the boat and the crew pedalled all night on a roster system accompanied by volunteers from the passengers. Both bikes were used constantly throughout the crossing with only one being vacant for one hour. I chatted to a 71 year old engineer who’s worked on the ship for many years and pedalled for 30 mins in his full overalls and steel capped boots – he was so excited when I introduced

 

him to Phil Anderson who he’d always wanted to meet!

…..no alarm this morning, simply an announcement over the ships PA at 5.30 to tell us we had arrived….

We did the Sunrise crosses from a very brisk deck with passengers and crew still pedalling the stationery bikes on air.

We rolled down the ramp around 8am hard to believe it’s now a week since we did the same in Martin Place. Being the last weekday of the tour we had quite a few school visits planned so the three pelotons went in different directions early and had great visits with the primary school kids of NW Tasmania. I was with the first group and we rode about 35kms to Sheffield with several testing hills on now very weary legs. Sheffield is a lovely town famous for murals and every available wall is painted with some amazing artwork.

The scenery is stunning, rolling green hills, rich red soil, pretty woods with bracken and blackberries in the hedgerows – it’s very like my home county Devon in England even many of the place names of small towns we rode through are the same Chudleigh, Exton, signs to Exeter although we didn’t get to that one.  After a visit to the Sheffield school we hit the big hills and had climbed 1200m after about 45km. We had incredible views of the magnificent Cradle Mountain. The brisk morning had turned into a stunning warm sunny clear day and the roads are mostly fantastic quality, but our navigator made a wrong turn taking us on about 5 km of dirt road which I was not keen on – not sure what was worse the two hills of about 15% gradient up or going down the other side not wanting to brake on the loose gravel.  The pelotons behind were warned of our mistake and missed out on this experience which was very scenic, if a little uncomfortable.  The detour made us late for the next school stop which was a gorgeous agricultural school called the Hagly Farm School where they grow their own veggies and look after their animals which included calves, Alpacas and chickens.  They donated 3 dozen eggs for us to auction tonight and gave us a quick tractor tour of the farm.  Tomorrow is their annual fair, wish we could stay.

We continued along the Meander Valley under the backdrop of the magnificent Great Western Tiers  until we turned for Launceston and enjoyed a lovely long descent . The second half of the day was much flatter with a great descent all the way down into Launceston where we arrived about 4.30pm to a huge reception as we rode into the park on the river where a big fun fair was set up for Camp Quality. There were many performers, food stalls, pony rides, face painters etc. lots of fun.  The Beetle family with about 6 kids ranging from about 15 to 1 and another one on the way all performed tumbling acts and acrobatics which was excellent entertainment.  Around 5.30 we rode back up to the hotel for another quick turnaround to dinner again at 6.