Moulting Bay (St Helen’s) -> Lagoon Beach (Chain of Lagoons)

Distance cycled: 56 km
Ave: 16.2 km/h
Max speed: 57.6 km/h

After breakfasting on granola and yogurt and the remainder of the fresh blueberries, we headed back through town on our way south.

As we returned to our bikes, we were approached by a couple of youths on bikes.

A witness testimony by Jessi:

As our group’s expert about youths (both due to my work at the youth clinic, and my general youthful demeanor), I have been tasked with detailing our encounter with two youths on our way to Scamander. We first encountered them when we had stopped at a lookout where they rode their mountain bikes across the road to specifically tell us that they had biked from St Helens; a 20km ride which we had also done, and thus thought was quite reasonable given their youth and enthusiasm. We later found out that, like youth everywhere, they had LIED to us! We met up with them again 10 minutes later in Scamander where we had all stopped for snacks (my pregnancy craving for popcicles is now seasonally appropriate!). They admitted that they were actually from the next town over (a few km up the road), and seemed absolutely flabbergasted that we were biking so far.

We encountered them again another 15 minutes later when I had to stop to pee at a public bathroom just down the road and they expressed again their shock and awe at our biking prowess. We gave them a motivating pep talk about how they too could bike tour and really, they already have bikes and we had witnessed their snacking skills so they are pretty much set. I am confident that we have inspired a future generation of bike packers.

That is a faithful account of all my dealings with those youths.

Renate was barely gone when Ray, of Oportune Piano tuning van, stopped by. We had seen her van pass us multiple times – she’s mostly on holiday but has several days of work lined up in Hobart and Queenstown. 

Renate came back, interrupting a visit from a guy with a Scottish accent (no photo, so imagine a muscular young man wearing a floral shirt over a singlet with some necklaces, a cowboy hat, and a cigar) who came by and wanted to get some load carrying advice – apparently he’s also travelling by bike, but is using a trailer, which is proving difficult to manage on some of the trails!

Alice (with expert testimony from Dr. Jessica Tamura-Wells)