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    Alan Melville

    Al's Adventures

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    Alan Melville

    Al's Adventures

    A collection of stories by Alan Melville
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    Alan Melville

    Al's Adventures

    A collection of stories by Alan Melville
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  • SANDSTONE TO WILUNA P1010475
    Alan Melville

    Al's Adventures

    A collection of stories by Alan Melville
    Get emailed when something new is posted
    ...
  • WILUNA TO MEEKATHARRA P1010524
    Alan Melville

    Al's Adventures

    A collection of stories by Alan Melville
    Get emailed when something new is posted
    ...
  • WILUNA TO MEEKATHARRA REV 1 P1010768
    Alan Melville

    Al's Adventures

    A collection of stories by Alan Melville
    Get emailed when something new is posted
    ...
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Cygnet to Hobart

- on Sunday, 21 January 2018.

CYGNET TO GORDON    

It was a beautiful crisp morning and I was on the road by 0730. I took the coast road with the intention of getting as far as Snug, a small sea side community, parrrp…. didn’t happen. I got as far as Gordon, which when I arrived, I discovered it has a community run campground where one can stay for 4 consecutive nights at 5 bucks a night, so I plopped my fat bum down there and didn’t move for the rest of the day!!! Well, that’s not strictly true, I had to ride up to the general store 3 km’s away in order to get 5 bucks to put in the honesty box. I was impressed with both the prices and the range of the store considering its location, bought a bit of health food disguised as chocolate! The ride around the coast gave some nice views, there were some big hills but overall the road was great and there was very little traffic. I was overtaken by a B double full of fuel. He was just tonking along and it was quite a sight watching him get around some of the hairpins! Did big K’s today…..36 Km’s!!!

GORDON TO SNUG

On the road early, the plan was to get into Snug by 10am so I could get a full day in the van park and charge all my gear up, which I did. I found a bit of shade for the day for the tent, which was very pleasant.

The ride through was very pleasant, although there was one hill…… The particular hill was on a side road I had planned to take around the headland because I thought it would be reasonably flat….parrrp….wrong…..it was the steepest hill I’ve encountered since the Arthur River-Corinna road. I turned around and rolled back down and stuck to the main road even though it was quite busy. I saw a couple of “swamp chooks” [little swamp hens] cross the road in front of me, instead of crossing straight over and whizzing into the bush, they chose to run along beside me for a bit! Those little bastards can really hammer, they were doing near on 50 kph, naturally I was egging them on with “Run you little bastards, RUN RUN” What amazes me is how the birds never seem to poke their eyes out when they suddenly decide to turn off into the undergrowth at that speed!!!!!  

Had an interesting chat with a guy on a motorbike that stopped. He does a bit of bicycle touring and was interested in the trailer. He has a BOB and asked if it would be worth swapping over, given all the trouble I’ve had to date with the new yoke, I recommended he stay with his BOB. He was riding a nicely setup BMW which was very quiet, I was quite envious as he pulled away with no effort!!!

Also ran into Jim, a retired guy travelling with his car and van, I first met him in Stanley. We had a good yak and he went on his merry way. He’s base camped at a place a bit down the coast, and does day trips from there. A great way to go I reckon. All in all, a very lazy day.

SNUG TO OUTER HOBART. [CAMBRIDGE]

I hit the road early in order to try and miss the inevitable traffic en-route to Hobart, Snug is only about 15 Km’s away from Hobart. I took the A6 into Hobart and it turned out to be a good call as the gradient up the range was very doable. Once at the top it was a great downhill run into the city center. On that run I hit a new top speed of 77.8 KPH, that was pretty sweet!!!  J I simply passed through Hobart city centre, picked up a bike path and crossed the Derwent River Bridge and headed out to Cambridge, which is the closest van park that has camping sites around Hobart on the Northern shore. Crossing the Derwent Bridge is a bit of an epic, the path is extremely narrow and I had to concentrate otherwise the panniers caught the guard rails on either side. Two bikeS approached from the opposite direction and I had to stop so we could lift their bikes over mine in order for them to get past. There were also a couple of pedestrians heading my way and even though they fried to make themselves skinny, there wasn’t the room to go past them. I got past them when there was a bit of a “passing bay” about 2/3rds of the way over.  I stopped at Woolies on the way as I needed a bit of tucker. I’m camped in the van park and will have Sunday off and catch up with the web page etc. Tomorrow I’m hoping my other yoke for the trailer will arrive at the Hobart PO so I can whizz in and pick it up. I also want to buy Bruno from the bike shop a beer for organizing my brake pads so efficiently when I was in Queenstown.

The other day I got a call asking if I could do 8 day’s work back home and as I’m getting low on funds I’ll fly back and do that. I’ve made arrangements to store the bike in a self-storage place for 50 bucks a fortnight. I’m going to take the opportunity to take the ExtraWheel trailer home and return with my BOB Ibex.

OK, so I’m all up to date…….. I know it's not very descriptive, but unfortuantly it all has a sort of "sameness" for me. Not that I'm not enjoying myself, because I am, I'm just not inspired to stop and get the camera out so much any more.  Chat later!

Here’s a link to a few pics, not many mind you!

 

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmdLwJJ2

 

 

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