In late spring, Nzo took a long-overdue trip to Tasmania.
The party was Craig and me, and we were heading to Tassie to have a look around and do some bike rides.
Our first day in Tasmania set the vibe for the rest of the excursion: everybody we met was incredibly friendly and laid back. That goes for Australia in general in my experience, but Tassie seemed to take it up (or down?) a notch. Maybe it was because we turned up on a beautiful spring day, but the woman at customs greeted us like long-lost relatives.
We found our rental pickup truck after wandering around the carpark for a bit, we hadn’t expected the road-workers’ version. It came with the flatbed deck, reflective stripes and flashing light on top. It was outfitted with a CB radio and a gigantic bull bar to make us look Australian.
Our friends Angela and Mike had offered us accommodation in St Helens, a town at the northern end of the east coast.
The drive to St Helens traverses a good chunk of the eastern seaboard, and it would have been nice to take a couple of days over it. Instead we took three hours and a midway burger, and got to town in time to find our digs and organise some bikes. Maps couldn’t find the address but the friendly dude I asked for directions jumped in his truck (which looked like ours) and drove there with us following. We went to the bike shop recommended by our host and organised a couple of Giant Trance E sleds. Steve in the bike shop was very helpful, and even loaned us a rack.
About an hour inland from St Helens, Derby is a relic of a tin-mining past, and must have been a wild-west sort of joint in its day. It has that flavour even now, with one main street catering mostly to mountain bikers. Apparently near-dead before the bike riding hit town, it now sports a bustling community.
Mike was not able to join us for our first day, so we parked at the trailhead and pedalled into the complex-looking trail network for an introductory lap.
Climbing right to the top of the main system was a doddle on the bikes we chose. The mid-weight and mid-range bikes felt very comfy almost immediately. The way the climbing trails are built made them fun to ride up, dozens of switch backs get you to the top in an entertaining fashion. The trail-building is nothing like anywhere else I have been: it is incredibly detailed and meticulous in a way that can only have been achieved with a lot of investment. The terrain is not simple, granite underlies or protrudes from most of the area, and the trails have been created using existing features as well as built elements to access them. Even going up I was making mental notes to avoid crashing here. There are many very solid looking things to collide with.
Because it was our first day, and we wanted to get warmed up to the place, we decided to take what they call a blue trail back to town. It was a long loop back to town via about 8 kilometres of trail that felt like twice that far, packed with features and variety.
It didn’t take too long to figure out that on a ‘blue’ trail we could trust everything to be pretty safe, and it would be guaranteed fun.
After we rode a couple of laps in the park the following morning Mike arrived and we got one of those rides that only come with following a local. Riding a very beat-up fire road for a couple of hours got us wet feet in two river crossings and a decent climb to the start of a trail called Atlas. One of the original lines in the network, it is a trail building tour de force that I wanted to repeat immediately. One half of my brain was saying slow down and look at these epic trees, the other half was saying go as fast as you can this trail is so much fun.
We spent the next two days riding trails that are completely unique in my experience.
Point-to-point trails traversing wilderness are a favourite, and usually take the investment of time and energy in their creation getting from A to B, with good reason. Sustainably building a rideable route through wild country is a major project and they are generally concerned with just joining the dots.
The Blue Tier trails are all that, and much more. They are made to flow, with sculpted features that must have taken huge effort to establish. Think of the best series of berms and rollers in your local then stitch them together for kilometre after kilometre. After shuttling to the top, one dropped us down to a historic pub after a mad hour or so. The other one took us on a long a very diverse voyage from mountain top to ocean beach.
We had four seasons on that day, and traversed rainforest, open eucalypt woodland and threaded our way through gigantic granite features before were finished.
The town of St Helens has its own fairly comprehensive mountain bike park, and our last day riding took us there. Completely different rock formations to begin with gave way to more granite in a spectacular 36 kilometre loop. We shuttled to the top of a 400m peak, and ended up at sea level, and still climbed nearly 600m. It was another ride made much more accessible by Mike and Angela, riding in a place like this is so much more fun with a knowledgeable guide.
Sitting here thinking about it makes a return visit more and more likely.
One last example of classic Aussie humour revealed itself on our last day. As Mike and I rolled back to St Helens along the coastal bike trail, we spotted a poor pelican with an injured wing. Several people were already on their way to assist but Mike let his mate, the local cop, know about the injured bird. He texted “Pelican. Broken Wing. Beauty Bay.” A few minutes later came the response:
“Head off, hang upside down for three hours. Pluck at same time and disembowel. Slow cook for 6 hours over very low heat, turning regularly.”
Gotta love Australians.
