TASSIE’S EAST COAST – the full cycling story

The view from Devil’s Corner. That’s Freycinet National Park in the background. I’ve ridden from there. Well, I say ‘ridden’ but I wheeled the bike up the steepest bit.

That long, sweeping descent comes only after you’ve slogged up to the top of the hill. Push into that gale for a day and it may eventually become a helpful tailwind. For every idiot driver who almost squeezes you off the road, there are many courteous ones who overtake slowly, giving you wobble room and a ‘good-on-yer-mate’ wave.

Cycling the wild east coast of Tasmania certainly brings its share of both challenges and joys.

A PARADISE FOR PRISONERS AND DEVILS?

If every day could be like this, I’d almost be content to stay for the term of my natural life.

Many of the first white residents could wait to get off Maria Island.

Convicts transported here in 1825 built Aboriginal-style canoes, begged or bribed whaling ships to give them a ride or tried their luck on the swim across the strait to mainland Tasmania, a few kilometres away. To see the island now, you wonder where they’d rather have been.

TASSIE RIDE #3 – Swansea and Triabunna

The view from Devil’s Corner. That’s Freycinet National Park in the background. I’ve ridden from there this morning. Well, I say ‘ridden’ but I wheeled the bike up the steepest bit.

You have to earn your fun on a cycling tour. Between Freycinet Peninsula and Swansea is the ominously named ‘Devil’s Corner’.

A wizened local rider I met at Coles Bay has warned me about it. ‘The worst bit of the Tasman Highway, that is. Blind corners, speeding drivers, no shoulder…I wouldn’t try it myself.’

Thanks a lot, mate. That’s rather like saying, ‘If I wanted to get there I wouldn’t start from here.’ 

TASSIE RIDE #2 – out to Freycinet

Nearly there. Just a short ride around Coles Bay and I’ll be able to get off the bike and climb those Hazards.

It’s a relief to have an easier day in the saddle. 50 kilometres, 26 of them along the flat of Coles Bay Road, where the shoulder is wider, the traffic is generally slower and there are encouraging glimpses of the Hazards Range ahead.  

And Freycinet Peninsula is one of Tasmania’s most popular natural wonders – with good reason.

TASSIE RIDE #1 – Scottsdale to Bicheno

Gentleman, start your engine. The road at Scottsdale is downhill…for the first few hundred metres anyway.

I’m the guinea-pig, apparently. I’m certainly not the first to ride a bike along Tasmania’s East Coast, but I am the pioneer on Tasmanian Expeditions’ self-guided version of the adventure. 

All up it will be six days in the saddle, with a little time off to rest the rear end by doing some hiking in the national parks.

Tasmania is not yet well-developed as a cycling destination. That day may be coming, eventually. That the island has more than its fair share of spectacular scenery is a given.

DUTCH CANALS, RIVERS AND LAKES – cycling the Vecht

The Vecht at Loenen.

It’s our last week in Amsterdam for this year. Time for one more bike ride, this one with my friend and guide Hans, down the Rhine Canal to Loenen, between the lakes to Ankeveen, along the winding River Vecht to Weesp, and home again.

The wonderful thing about cycling here is that even after years of exploring the area around Amsterdam on two wheels, there are still new routes for us to discover, all of them with quiet, safe, all-but-car-free cycle paths.