 In the last issue of OVERDRIVE we had come to a full circle at Melbourne. The big island of Australia was conquered! Now what remained was the small but terrific natural state of Tasmania or Under Down Under. It is known as the natural state because its boundaries are defined by the waters, not by humans on a paper.
I. would describe Tasmania as a spaghetti soup. It’s full of corners of extreme kind and it is surrounded with ocean and penetrated with water bodies. We also experienced wilderness like we had never seen before, and that too just off the main roadsThe fresh water lakes strewn all over had a brown colour on the banks due to the tea trees. Every few kays we would see a sign indicating a tourist photo spot.
In fact lots of Australians themselves are surprised that they have such a quality holiday destination so near to home!
Tasmania seems to have the best riding environs in the whole of Australia, no doubts about that, but the skill level required to negotiate these corners is indeed of a high exponent. Our interpretation was corroborated by a newspaper release which said there have been at least 8 motorcycle accidents on Tasmanian roads since the new year started with one fatality.
It was the outback inverted.
The route which we took in Tasmania was Devonport – Strahan – Queenstown – Hobart - Huon Valley - Coles Bay – Launceston – Devonport
The highlights of Tasmania for us are:
• Route from Devonport to Strahan
• The winding roads
• Lots of other bikes
• Omnipresent sweet smell of (pine?) in the air.
• Wilderness areas
• Lots of side dirt paths leading to shores of water bodies of all kinds : rivers, rivulets, creeks, lake, ocean
• Tuesday Bike Night at Joe’s Garage in Hobart
• The landscape around Queenstown reminded me of the jagged mountains and rugged landscape of Ladakh in India
• We met a guy on a CBR Movistar replica, Jesse. He accompanies us for a good deal in our rides in Tasmania.
• The environmental drama and damage caused at the Gordon Dam.
• Getting a BMW 1200GS from Moto Adventure Tours for a day.
• The clouds and beaches at Coles Bay in the Freycinet Peninsula, but we were really disappointed not to see the Wineglass Bay, which was rated as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.
The End: A continent conquered
Yes, we have done it. The emotion was that when we met up with ‘Tez Riders’ at the Federation Square for a last photo session with the Indian flags in Australia. And it didn’t seem long when we were preparing for the trip, and we started off on the first day from Melbourne in rain. All I can say god had been with us for very long and had protected us from any serious mishaps down under. The Hyosung GT650s had been very faithful to us all along. The kind of stress they went in the 72 days was surprising. For a 650 road V-twin they had performed very well, and we did not even feat dropping them because the parts were so cheap. All in all we would say that the action performed speaks louder than any words. We have done Australia with Unsung Heroes, no more.
G’Day, for now.
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