Chris L
12-28-03, 10:21 PM
Another day, another classic ride. I set off early from Launceston, attempting to beat what passes for traffic in Tasmania. The first couple of km were virtually all uphill as I climbed out of the city. I took a "service road" route on the old highway (next to the new one) for a few km out of Launceston, passing through a couple of historic towns along the way.
Just after Carrick (a good place to check out the architecture), the road heads south, almost billiard-table flat through farming country. As one heads south, the views of the Great Western Tiers loom larger. Now the ride starts to get interesting. A few other little hamlets are passed along the way, one which as a habit of displaying paintings on it's street signs (would you believe the name of it escapes me as I type this, but I'm sure it will come back to me later on).
About 40km or so into the ride, the climbing starts. At first on a winding narrow road through a deep valley alongside the Liffey River. Gradually the level of forest cover here increases, and these are real forests, not that pine rubbish I saw in the North East. Eventually I reached the lower entrance to Liffey Falls, where I took a walk to the base of the falls. A note here, although the lower walk is longer than the upper one, it's generally the less touristy of the two, and not as far off the route, so I think it's the better one to do.
An hour of so of walking through the rainforest leads to a massive waterfall, not so much in height as bredth. Unfortunately there were a few more tourists than I would have liked to have seen here, but the falls are insipiring just the same.
Shortly after returning to the start of the track and getting back on the bike, I started a mind-buggeringly steep climb on a dirt road. This was granny gear stuff, but the upside is that gradients like that generally aren't sustained for very long, and I found myself on a cruisy ride through the forest on a quiet little dirt road.
After gaining 600 metres in height from Launceston, I soon found myself descending toward the town of Deloraine. The descent goes through the forest (with a few rather interesting cornering situations) before the final section through rolling farmland, which is somewhat greener than what I started in this morning.
I arrived to a campsite in Deloraine, spend probably longer than I needed to updating my journal (hence the note about 'getting the wind up' yesterday), and found a campsite by the Meander River (sometimes in the river after heavy rain - Great!). Most of the remainder of the day was spent in search of more food, and a less successful search for the next 1:250,000 map in the series. If only I'd thought to get one in Launceston.
Just after Carrick (a good place to check out the architecture), the road heads south, almost billiard-table flat through farming country. As one heads south, the views of the Great Western Tiers loom larger. Now the ride starts to get interesting. A few other little hamlets are passed along the way, one which as a habit of displaying paintings on it's street signs (would you believe the name of it escapes me as I type this, but I'm sure it will come back to me later on).
About 40km or so into the ride, the climbing starts. At first on a winding narrow road through a deep valley alongside the Liffey River. Gradually the level of forest cover here increases, and these are real forests, not that pine rubbish I saw in the North East. Eventually I reached the lower entrance to Liffey Falls, where I took a walk to the base of the falls. A note here, although the lower walk is longer than the upper one, it's generally the less touristy of the two, and not as far off the route, so I think it's the better one to do.
An hour of so of walking through the rainforest leads to a massive waterfall, not so much in height as bredth. Unfortunately there were a few more tourists than I would have liked to have seen here, but the falls are insipiring just the same.
Shortly after returning to the start of the track and getting back on the bike, I started a mind-buggeringly steep climb on a dirt road. This was granny gear stuff, but the upside is that gradients like that generally aren't sustained for very long, and I found myself on a cruisy ride through the forest on a quiet little dirt road.
After gaining 600 metres in height from Launceston, I soon found myself descending toward the town of Deloraine. The descent goes through the forest (with a few rather interesting cornering situations) before the final section through rolling farmland, which is somewhat greener than what I started in this morning.
I arrived to a campsite in Deloraine, spend probably longer than I needed to updating my journal (hence the note about 'getting the wind up' yesterday), and found a campsite by the Meander River (sometimes in the river after heavy rain - Great!). Most of the remainder of the day was spent in search of more food, and a less successful search for the next 1:250,000 map in the series. If only I'd thought to get one in Launceston.