Tasmania -> Victoria (via Melbourne, Los Angeles, and Vancouver)

Jessi has been home for a few weeks, and we, too, were homebound.

At Launceston airport, we were again miraculously not charged anything for our luggage. We had called a few days ago and identified we’d be expected to pay $60 per bike up to 32kg, and then $100 for an additional checked bag. At the check-in counter, they made me remove 1.3kg from my bike box to get it down to 32kg, but they didn’t mention paying for any of it, so neither did we!

We found Melbourne (and Sydney, which Jessi flew through) much easier to navigate around than Brisbane (which involved a bus between international and domestic). And San Francisco was much better than Los Angeles (which has shitty wifi, and was annoying to navigate).

We hadn’t booked a flight from Vancouver to Victoria, thinking it would be cheaper and more reliable to take the bikes over on the ferry than risk two bike boxes both making it on a small plane. But no, due to wind warnings for Georgia Strait, the evening ferries were all cancelled.

We started our day in Launceston at 4am on Feb 24th, which, thanks to the time difference, became 38 hours long by the time we got home just before 11pm, still on Feb 24th! It was a loooong day.

So, some summary thoughts about our Tasmanian adventure:

Impressions of Tasmania from JTW:
My overall my impression of Tasmania was very positive, and it felt like a great place for a bike trip. People were very friendly and helpful, the land was beautiful and varied, there was so much free camping and the road quality was pretty good overall. I was struck how helpful people were!! You could call a bus company and speak to a real human who actually knew things and provided accurate information! And called you back when they said they would! It really made travelling pleasant and easy, even with last-minute plans. 

Given we were at a similiar latitude to Aotearoa, for some reason I was expecting a somewhat similar landscape but it many ways it was very different. The 3 Cape Track had some of the most stunning geology and land formations ever and once we made it to the coast, the beaches were plentiful, varied and lovely. 

I think one if my favourite things was all the very cool and different animals (see below). I think my favourite animals that we saw were the echidnas (and did you know they have a 4 headed penis??!). 

I am not sure if realistically I will make it back to Tasmania given there are so many new places to go and it was a bit of a journey to get there BUT if I do make it back, I would love to explore the Overland Track and sample of the many Tasmanian wines!

Summary thoughts from F:
Tasmania has been an easygoing place to cycletour. Good roads, lots of free-camping, friendly folks, pretty towns, and beautiful scenery. It’d be a great place to go for your first cycletour. The thing that most surprised me here was the quantity of roadkill, and the number of animals that I had never heard of that are totally commonplace. I’m pretty bummed about the whole appendix fiasco, but I must admit that if it was going to happen, it went as smoothly as it possibly could have. I’m VERY GRATEFUL that Alice was there to capably navigate me to medical attention and us through all the logistics that precipitated from me not being able to cycle for the last 10 days of our trip, and very grateful for her patience with me and her willingness to adapt to changing circumstances.

Summary impressions from Alice:
I know Flis could’ve sorted things out without me, but I sure am VERY GRATEFUL that my appendix didn’t get any ideas and burst as well! I think asking for and accepting help is harder than figuring out complicated logistics, so that was good to practice, I suppose.
Okay, yeah, the roadkill thing was rough. I thought I’d get used to it, but didn’t really. Maybe that’s something about cycling or hiking – you’re closer and more connected to the land: the weather, the animals, the smells, the track surface, the topography. But even with the car, the roadkill angst was still there (more from the concern about causing roadkill, which I never worried about on the bike!). It was ever present, but roadkill does not define this island. There is a LOT of beautiful coastline here, from beaches to sea cliffs. It seems that there is so much of it that none of it got jammed – even on the Freycinet, where we expected to see many other tourists, we found quiet spaces and lots of breathing room.
There is a bold, friendly vibe from folks here, which is pleasant, but I’ll admit I felt more “at home” in Aotearoa, where the vibe was less bold and more chill. Weirdly, even after 5 weeks, I sometimes still had trouble with the Aussie accent, which I don’t remember experiencing in NZ either.
(Ok, this is a lot of comparisons with NZ, partly because I was there for a similar length trip at this time last year, and partly there’s the same-but-different way of understanding a place between NZ and Aus just like between Canada and the US.)

Like NZ, there were a lot of unique animals here! I’d never seen kangaroos, let alone many of these others:
☆ wallabies (medium-sized hoppers)
☆ pademelons (smaller hoppers)
☆ pataroos (even smaller hoppers)
☆ bandicoots (large rodents, almost as big as the pataroos)

☆ rosellas (pair bonded green parrots)
☆ kukaburas (loud “bushman’s alarm clocks”)
☆ little penguins (noisy, pair bonded cuties)
☆ carrawongs (clever, zipper opening thieves)
☆ Australian magpies (dapper, noisy fliers)
☆ cape berren geese (big grazers)
☆ wedge tailed eagles (rare big soarers)
☆ sea eagles (pair bonded fish catchers)
☆ three species of cormorants (dapper dressed divers)
☆ albatross (wide winged soarers)
☆ kelp gulls (bossy scavengers)
☆ Tasmanian native hens (weka meets chicken)
☆ Masked lapwings (black hatted city park goers)
☆ black swans (dark, lake swimmers)
☆ And many other birds we didn’t get to know by name (still not sure what all those super loud obnoxious white parrot-size birds in fields and cities were!).

☆ possums (fuzzy tailed climbers)
☆ wombats (tough assed grazers)
☆ Tasmanian devils (super chompy marsupials)
☆ platypus (shy, nocturnal monotremes)
☆ echidna (spiny, waddly monotremes)

☆ two species of fur seals (who knew they could leap like dolphins?!)
☆ dolphins (bottlenosed, epic jumpers)
☆ seahorses (spiny, curly camouflagers)
☆ leafy sea dragons (colourful, hard, camouflagers)
☆ two species of handfish (tiny swimbladder-less bottom dwellers)

So, what was our favourite animal encounter?: jumping dolphins is really hard to beat… but also seeing the wedge tail eagles was pretty special because they’re so rare, and it was also awesome to see platypus and penguins in the wild, both as unexpected consequences of the appendix detour. But also, I could watch echidnas and wombats all day – they’re really cute!

What were the surprises?:
• None of the wildlife tried to get into our food
• Prices were pretty high
• Customer service was (with some notable exceptions) really good and often helpful beyond expectations – e.g. calling the bus company, we reached a real live competent and actively helpful human being!
• Appendicitis! Nobody expected that!

What were the worst bits?:
• Appendicitis, definitely.
• Being woken by unreasonable drain work at a premium Airbnb
• The smell of dead things

What were the highlights?:
• Novel wildlife!
• Great weather (no headwinds, only one day of on and off rain all trip!)
• Gorgeous coastline, lovely lakes, and excellent side trip hiking trails

Best camp?: Flis says Binny Lake, I say tie with Encampment Cove on Maria Island
Best Airbnb/hostel?: Launceston’s initial arrival Airbnb was the snazziest, but I think we appreciated the Queenstown cottage the most
Best beach?: disputed, too many good ones to pick!
Best views?: the blade on the 3 Capes Track, with the summit of Cradle Mountain as a rewarding second
Best meal?: Stillwater
Best camping meal?: SFG’s ling cod meunière with fresh veg and berries in Moulting Bay (Bringing the gourmet kitchen mess kit was a great choice for this trip!)
Best fish & chips?: tie between Cole’s Bay and the food truck at the Blowhole in Pirates Bay
Best ice cream?: so many good ones, no duds
Best wine experience?: F: “the one with the food plate… and they were solar powered and the person actually worked in the vineyard as well”

What was the longest day?: Feb 1 (F and I rode 112.2km to meet Jessi in Port Arthur)
Fastest day?: 21.7km/h (me gunning for my overnight hike on Jan 27) or 20.1km/h (getting out of Hobart on Feb 10)
Highest max speed?: 73.5km/h on Feb 11 when we felt slow… (Flis the downhill daredevil says this isn’t that impressive – she’s gone faster!)

Review of the gear?:
• The Alice Palace was overkill as it usually is.
• My puffy was also overkill (I only used mine once, but Flis used hers heaps).
• Bringing chairs for the first half was nice, but I sent mine home with Jessi, which I did not regret. Having a lighter kit is also nice, especially when you unexpectedly end up carrying two!
• And yet another purple mattress failed (my third warranty mattress from Sea to Summit will be mailed to my home, but being able to keep Jessi’s for the second half was a lucky and appreciated interim solution.)

We take our health and wealth so much for granted. It is such good fortune to be able to haul 100lbs of “unnecessities” up and over and down whatever lumps and bumps we like. If Flis can do 93km with a ruptured appendix, what can’t we do?? 😀

The End (of this trip at least),

Alice