Northern Tassie Tour – Day 5

Northern Tassie Tour – Day 5. Beauty Point to Legana

This morning’s early visit to the Amenities resulted in a viewing of the entire visible sky – the rain clouds having disappeared. The Southern Cross was up high and very bright. So good was the “seeing” that I could make out the Coalsack, an area of seemingly no stars close to the Cross, also the two Magellanic Clouds – nearby Galaxies. See https://www.eso.org/public/australia/images/b06/ for more Coalsack info.

The Milky Way was looking very, well, milky. So many stars visible that one could spend hours stargazing. Each time I can see the Coalsack (can’t see it in Longford, it needs a dark sky) I think “Great, the cataracts don’t need fixing yet!”.

After a bit more sleep it was time to get up and get packing for an early start. My tent was damp from dew and condensation but the day will be fine and it should dry out this afternoon.  Colin’s tent seemed to be dry anyway- how come?

8.30 start!  We left the caravan park and rode slowly, once more down to Beaconsfield for breakfast at our favourite Jubilee Bakery. I wanted a bacon sandwich having run out of milk for my normal muesli. They had egg and bacon sandwiches so, OK, an egg too. The lady behind the counter smiled and said “here’s one I made earlier”. As I started to eat it I saw a price on the box $7.40 – that was only 1$ less than the $8.50 I was charged for the sandwich plus coffee. Just how much earlier had she made it?  Yesterday? Was it a special deal for cyclists? Who knows and it doesn’t matter, it tasted Ok with the coffee as good as yesterday. 

We decided on separate routes today with Colin travelling the more direct, less hilly route. I turned off along Grubb Street and headed towards Goaty Hill again while Colin started off down the Highway.  I didn’t explain my route plan well to Colin so we had a misunderstanding about the proposed meet point. In the end it didn’t matter as Colin ended up taking the highway all the way to Legana – and it was shorter and less hilly than my more convoluted ride.

My first goal was the small town of Kayena, riding Auburn Road to get there. The initial part of the ride was, the same as yesterday, to climb Goaty Hill. Today, as I climbed the Hill, I stopped and spoke to a couple of cyclists coming the other way. Apparently they had had a chat with Colin a few days ago. Very interested in the trikes, they took a couple of pictures.  They also mentioned that they will not ride the tarmac road over towards Port Sorell via Holwell as it is too dangerous; narrow with 100kph trucks. Listening to them I’m glad we decided to retrace our wheel ruts.

Saying our farewells, I then continued the climb. Today I was using higher power levels intending to have an easy ride and use both batteries. Level 5 and low ratio on the Nuvinci was proving a good climbing mix. 

The views off this road were stunning and the traffic very light. After a nice descent passing the Goaty Hill winery grapevines, I reached a T junction and turned right, surprised remain on Auburn Road.  At this point the road followed the coastline; it had little traffic on it. The few houses I was passing were quite new, quite large and all had huge boats parked outside. It would seem to be a serious recreational fishing area. I think this was Kayena.

A bit later I turned left onto Auld Kirk Road, still following the waters’s edge heading through Sidmouth towards the Batman Bridge. (The English pronunciation of the town name would be something like “SidMth” – not sure how Tasmanians say it).

I expected the road would exit onto the Highway close to Deviot Road and, when it turned to gravel and did not start to climb, this expectation grew unlikely. In fact it was better, the road ran under the bridge and then angled right to meet up with Deviot Road- exactly where I needed to go. 

On joining Deviot Road I sent Colin a text reporting where I was. I got a reply saying he was already at the Rosevears Tavern. Crikey he must be flying.  At this stage I didn’t know he had chosen the highway route – I thought we were meeting in Gravelley Beach for lunch! My explanation of today’s route must have been as clear as mud and our agreement at cross-purposes!

My return ride along Deviot Road through Deviot itself and Gravelley Beach was good. Great views and easy riding using the upped power levels. The battery was draining quickly though.

On reaching the West Tamar Highway at Exeter, the run through the roadworks along to Rosevears Drive was better – downhill this time, power level 6 and holding 30kph through the 40k zone seemed to go down Ok with the following traffic. 

Then it was down Rosevears Drive. I stopped at the Rosevears Hotel using the car park out front to halt and swap batteries over. With the lower voltages (now down to 35v) running through the system, the trike had become a bit sluggish so I had upped the power level accordingly, emptying the battery quicker. Now, with the newly charged battery and back to 41 volts, I found we went quite well at level 3.

Today’s very enjoyable ride continued until arriving at the Highway close to Legana. At the junction with the highway 2 cyclists had stopped to have a chat, so I joined in for a few mins. They were interested in the trike but seemed more interested at the age of the rider! It’s a bit unnerving to have people talk to me and give encouragement to keep going just because I have a few years on them ! Unnerving but actually quite nice.

The climb up to the Legana roundabout went OK as did the trip down to the caravan park entry.  For both sections there is a comfortable hard shoulder and, between them, a good bit of footpath to use to avoid riding on the busy roundabout that gives access to the shopping centre.

Colin was already at the caravan park and had organised our site – the same site we had a few days back. He had to wait for it to be mown before he could move onto it. Colin had a good run down the Highway with it’s wide hard shoulders for most of the way and was feeling much less tired today. That’s a plus.

Looking around the camp it was surprising just how many interstate visitors, in the caravans and motorhomes, were filling the place. Queenslanders and NSWalers mostly. Some are quite “houseproud” and one lady was busy with a leaf blower cleaning up the concrete slab next to their ‘van. Bloody noisy it was too!! I am sure their tales of avoidance of various State Covid lockdowns would be interesting but we didn’t want to get too close!

We spotted a disgruntled looking park worker shoving a wheelbarrow, with a bag of cement and tools in it, up the hill to the camp kitchen area. He disappeared and then came a lot of banging from below. We worked it out – the garbage can flattened by the motorhome during our last visit was being beaten back into shape and re-positioned on a newly concreted post. From the noise of the hammering I can understand how the Caribbean steel bands came about – but they were in tune.

All up, today had given me a good ride, good weather, good traffic and the canopy continued to behave well.  In addition, Colin was feeling much better too. A good result all round.

And now – today’s video :

Now for one last item. A couple of days ago I said we had seen the Moon as a sliver and we were unsure as to whether it was waning to oblivion or just starting waxing. I can now state, it was a new moon – just started waxing.

I get a bit unsure because for the first 28 years of my life I saw the moon phases in a northern hemisphere context and, quite honestly, didn’t pay much attention anyway. Now living in the southern hemisphere and having completed a couple of Astronomy courses over the years, I tend to look up a bit more. Added to my confusion is a book I have of the Southern Stars by Patrick Moore. The diagram of the waxing / waning moon seems to be copied out of his northern hemisphere books – poor editing ? !

All that aside – what we saw was a Waxing Crescent Moon from a viewpoint in the southern hemisphere!