See ya, suckers!

I'm off to Tassie!

you will love it, make sure you visit Cole's bay

Might see you there

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Lap of the Map

Top to Toe, Twisting and Turning, Tasmanian Tour of Twenty Twenty

Onion and I had often talked about a ride in Tassie.  Geoff had done a fair bit of driving there and recommended it.  And Pete and his missus did a drive around late last year and also said it would make a great ride.  So we started planning.  Pete was keen on making it a cast-of-thousands event, but had to curtail his ideas due to family issues.  So, Geoff and I had a cuppa and decided we'd go on our own, if nothing else.  So I called Onion and told him what we planned and he said yes.  Then I called Ken (who had been involved in the original discussion) and he said yes.  And finally I called Pete and told him, and he said since we'd already planned it all, he'd come too and so would Tony.  So we had a good group of six and it was on.

Organizing accommodation for 6 blokes in Tassie is tricky.  No web-site will understand that you want 6 SEPARATE beds and try to couple you up.  When you ring places, the first question they ask is, "how friendly are the 6 of you?".  Not that friendly was my usual reply.  So after may discussions, I managed to secure 6 SEPARATE beds and a number of strategic locations around the Apple Isle.  That done, it was time to book the boat.

The 'overseas passage' organization was Geoff's job.  Given that we were planning on being away over the Labour Day long weekend, the boat was quite full, but more importantly, there was only provision for 4 bikes on the outward bound journey day we had selected.  So Ken, Onion, Geoff and I secured a cabin and those 4 spots, while Pete and Tony were booked to depart the following day.  Transport all done, we were ready to go.

We departed on Thursday 5th March.  This day will go down in history as the wettest day Melbourne had had since records were taken!  I watched the radar all morning, with intermittent down pours happening all day, but when I left work at 2:00, it was looking dry and 'good'  I raced home, got changed into wet weather gear and headed to Geoff's place.  Three minutes after I rode out of home, it started to rain heavily again, and by the time I got to Geoff's, I was soaked.  We road into Port Melbourne in peak hour traffic, with deep puddles and minor flooding everywhere.  Eventually, we met up with Onion and Ken and checked in, did quarantine and lined up for the boat.  We got to the top of the ramp and the attendant stopped us and warned us not to use our front brakes and we descended the wet steel ramp of death onto the boat.  This was sage advise, as my back wheel nearly passed my front as soon as we hit the metal!  Anyhoo, we all made it safely on board, parked our bikes and headed to the cabin to get changed.



 Once inside and dry, it was up to the top deck for several well earned beers to calm the shattered nerves, followed by some pretty ordinary pizza, and more beer/wine.



At some appropriate hour, we headed back to the cabin and the call for bed.  The voyage out through the bay was quite smooth, but you could feel it get a bit lumpy once we got near the heads.  The rest of the trip was reasonably comfortable, with everyone getting bouts of sleep throughout the night.