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TASMANIA SAGA
< 1 2 3 4 >THE WEST
It was beautiful day when I left. The sun was shining, there was a nice cooling tailwind blowing and I had spent the first half of the day doing absolutely nothing. It was great. I had a great view of the coast from the road that I was traveling on. It ran parallel to the coast most of the time. It wasn�t mountainous, but the road ran high enough that I would have huge panoramic views of coastline to come. The bicycle was laden down so I was going slow enough to appreciate the view. It was a good feeling to have quit my job again and left on another adventure. I had decided to go west for no better reason than it was there.
The first stop along my way was a little big town known as Burnie. It was about fifty kilometers from Devonport and I thought that it would be a good place to start a trip from. I arrived before sunset and pulled out my guidebook to find a place to stay. The first line that I read was this: �It is unlikely that you will want to stay in Burnie�. Undaunted, I found a caravan park to set up my tent at. All that I saw of Burnie, I saw on the road that went through. I think that it was a mining town. The downtown area stood in the shadow of high cliffs that had been blasted a way. Houses spotted the steep hills behind the town. The brief vision I had of it made it seem unlike any town I had seen in Tasmania. It was a place where people where still living instead of a tourist town where everything was slowly dying, boring though. I left at first light.
Once again, I consulted the map. The nearest tourist attraction was the Historic town of Stanley. The guidebook described a thing called �the nut� as the main attraction. Stanley was situated on a peninsula. There was a narrow isthmus that led up to a larger circle of land that held both the town and the giant volcanic formation previously referred to as �the nut�. I had seen a few advertisements for this place in Devonport and it was mentioned in most tours around Tassie. It wasn�t a very hard decision to make. I was on my way in minutes. The trip there is something I would love to spend hours writing about. It is hard to describe the feeling that you get riding through mountainous country on a cool autumn day. At every rise, the landscape changed. The hills got larger and larger. I could see farther and longer every time I reached a crest. I could relax and see the view as the cool speeding air made my eyes water and cooled my sweat. For miles there was nothing but farms and coastline to see. Sheep, potatoes, carrots and the occasional small town, filled my vision until about twelve, when I reached what seemed to be the top of the last hill. There was something different in my view. I could see the nut looming further along the coast.
There is a reason why this thing was a major tourist attraction of the area. I wonderd why people go out to see Ayers rock out in the middle of the desert. After all, It is just a rock right? The nut was miles and miles away when I saw it from the top of the mountain road. I got a brief taste of what those people rave about when they see the rock in the middle of the desert. I was impressed. I was even more impressed when I realized that I had about twenty kilometers of mostly downhill from my position. That was the peak of my trip. I made it into Stanely a few hours later and found myself at the base of the nut. I�d climb it the next day and spend a day in the little city. It was a nice little place but I wouldn�t want to live there. The nut was a ten-minute walk to the top and a thirty minute walk around the top. The best view of it was still from a distance.
I had a bit of trouble with my knee the last 10k into Stanely. I took an extra day off to see if it would get any better. It didn�t. I decided that I�d make some progress regardless. My next goal was all the way on the west coast of Tasmania. Marawa was one of the most isolated places in Tasmania. There was no public transport there and cars didn�t head in that direction very often either. It was a bit far to go in pain and I didn�t want to pay for another night in Stanely. I spent the night camped out on a beach in view of the nut. In the morning, the pain was still there whenever I was on the bike. I didn�t have enough water to camp out another night so I stumbled into the town of Smithton.
Smithton is the center of Northwest Tasmania. It�s a shit hole and I spent two days there. The knee wasn�t getting better and I didn�t want to cause permanent damage. With great sadness I ended my bike trip in Smithton. I wasn�t very happy with this turn of events and I wanted to be around other young people again. �Screw this� I thought �I�m done with small towns without hostels. I�m going to Hobart!� I was on the bus when the next one left.
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