On Monday 2nd November 2015 twenty of the survivors from Simon Pavey’s Off-Road Skills course headed out from Launceston on the five day ride-out around Tasmania, the group representing about a million dollars of mobile BMW revenue. As there was only one rider joining us who hadn’t done the training, we maintained our course level groups. The different levels were to follow the same basic route, but the level 2 legend riders were to do extra “black” legs, the level 1.5 in-between riders do extra “red” legs, and the level 1 riders do the “green” legs. In reality it was not so simple, with the trainers sometimes showing huge confidence in their charge’s abilities and taking them on the more difficult legs.
The first morning of the ride was spent heading north-west of Launceston into the forests and farmland, with Chris Northover leading my “red” group. Chris is a hyperactive type of person, but an extremely effective trainer as he brings an aura of total confidence and fun which tends to rub off on the group. The riding was a mixture of good roads, farm roads, and rutted slippery tracks that barely fell into the road category – we were often looking for a Sherpa to help carry the bikes. Picking the right line was the major difference between success and failure, with even Chris momentarily defeated and having to physically drag his 800GS sideways out of a rut to get going again. This sort of riding normally produces one of two extreme outcomes at each challenge; the “got through easy” or the “total disaster”. Most interesting is that the outcomes are usually spread evenly across the group, with everyone taking a fair share of both. The end of the morning saw us in the picturesque town of Sheffield, famous for its murals. A very nice lunch was had at the pub, before a wander about the town and preparation for the afternoon riding.
The afternoon was some great twisties on the bitumen roads through to the hinterland hills behind Ulverstone, before some seriously rocky single track roads through magnificent forests and more twisties on the bitumen heading down into Burnie for the first night. Cindy and I and the family lived in Burnie for most of the 2000’s, so we took the opportunity of our local knowledge to go to the best quiet place to eat, only to find that everyone else was already there. After dinner came a movie at the cinema, then off to bed for an early get up for what was expected to be a very long second day down to Strahan.
Bright and early we were up with our bags packed and thrown in the trailer, our rations of water and muesli bars and fruit drawn, and our bikes prepped for the ride. My “red” group leader on day two was our course trainer Llewellyn Pavey which suited us fine. Firstly there was a bit of a commute through Burnie to the west along the highway, which resulted in the group spreading out as Burnie has more traffic lights per head of population than any other town in the world. Kalgoorlie is the same size at around 25,000 people and had three sets of lights when we lived there; Burnie seems to have at least 14,000 sets. The first group stop was only about 70km out at Detention River, we needed to make sure the fuel tanks were absolutely full before heading down the west coast as there are no fuel stations until Zeehan.
Once fuelled it was out into the bush, mainly forestry roads with a few nasty off-camber loose gravel sharp bends thrown in to keep the concern levels at maximum setting. A really rough packed red dirt road detour through the forest before Edith Creek was on the “black” group list, but luckily it hadn’t rained so didn’t deserve the quality slur. We arrived at Edith Creek just in time to see Cindy and the “green” group coming out of the shop having just run the place out of dim sims which were apparently awesome, so there was no point in stopping. The next section of road was the relatively new “Western Explorer”, which starts out as a billiard-table smooth section of bitumen with 120kmh sweeping curves before becoming the 100km gravel road which runs all the way to Corinna on the Pieman River on the wild and picturesque West Coast.
There was a brief “red” route detour at the start of the Western Explorer via a rough road which ended at an old airstrip, with a large dirt mound at the end of the road, presumably to stop motorcyclists. Our group generally had the “got through easy” over the mound which required some delicacy with throttle and clutch control, except for one minor drop. Cindy in the “green” group behind up also took the route with Chris Northover. According to Cindy, Chris was wildly signalling that maximum speed was required to get over the mound, and so rode accordingly, with huge air achieved before a spectacular crash. Damage to the left thumb and bent handle bars was the result, but with minimalist repairs to both they were underway again.
The road condition on the Western Explorer was very good, starting out as mainly wide straight road before getting into the mountains with increasingly forested areas and twisty sections before the final descent into the Pieman River. The day had already been a long one, and it was after 1:30pm before our “red” group arrived into Corinna, to find we were the first. Corinna is a small settlement which was first established in the 1870’s as prospectors looking for deposits moved down the west coast from the rich Mt Bischoff tin mine at Waratah. The Pieman River provided a way to get access from the sea for people, food, and equipment, albeit extremely risky like most of the west coast access points which are normally being pounded by huge roaring 40’s waves. Corinna provided a ferry crossing point across the Pieman River then, and still does now. Luckily for us, it also provided a very nice lunch.
The tardy “green” and “black” groups eventually showed up, just as we were getting ready to go across the 100m wide river on the ferry for a charge of $12.50 per bike. Only alternative is to ride an extra 100km so the price seemed fair. Once off the ferry, we headed off to Zeehan which is the place where Cindy and I and our youngest child Kate first stayed temporarily when we arrived in Tasmania in 2001. The town is rarely mentioned among the world’s top 10 most beautiful places, but it does have a fantastic mining and metallurgy museum. After a long and drawn-out, but ultimately successful process trying to get fuel in Zeehan, we headed off down toward Strahan. All the way from Corinna I had been expecting we would turn off somewhere for the rumoured afternoon of ugly riding, but as we were approaching Strahan I was lulling myself into the belief that the rumours were unfounded, when we suddenly veered off road into the Henty dunes pine plantations.
The roads in forestry plantations tend to start as good quality permanent access roads and degenerate as they get closer to the harvesting areas. Llewellyn Pavey had told us that we were heading to a broken bridge as a training exercise, however the bridge turned out to be the easiest part with the roads becoming a mixture of soft sand and lumps of wood which seemed deliberately placed to knock the rider into the seventh circle of hell (repeated violent contact with the bushes and the ground for what seems like eternity according to Dante’s Inferno adventure blog).
A guideline of sand riding quickly became apparent after meeting up with the “black” group deep in the plantation; going first is always better. Unfortunately we learned this because we were last, and we were returning over the same sandy track we’d come in on, which was no longer recognisable. Every 20m were wild swings between “got through alright” and “total disaster” for everyone in the group, and it was with a sense of relief we got onto the permanent access roads and finally back out onto the now-worshipped bitumen surface for the short ride into Strahan. Within ten minutes we were parked at the hotel and stripping off the sand-impregnated gear in preparation for a well-deserved Boag’s XXX and a great buffet dinner which allowed dessert to come first or last as personal preference dictated.
The following morning was at leisure in beautiful Strahan, but after lunch it was the challenge of sand riding. As Cindy and I had been delayed doing a property inspection on a house we still own in the town, a quick “full sand immersion” catch-up lesson on sand riding was required for me, before we headed out onto Ocean Beach which stretches north from Macquarie Harbour and is famous for regular whale stranding. A beach access road that had been top quality standard when we lived there looked as though someone had deliberately brought in sand to obliterate any trace of the road, requiring a lot of high revvin’ foot paddlin’ action for about 100m to get onto the beach.
Once on the beach it was a completely different story; firm and fantastic. The surface was perfect for a level 3 lesson from Simon Pavey doing slide turns around cones that had been set up. The method was to head toward a cone, lock up the back wheel and put weight on the inside peg to get it to drift around and almost stop, hopefully pointing about 90° around the cone, before powering on to the next cone. Great fun, but with some risk of a “high side” if the back brake was released too early. A nice ride down the long beach before a short challenging section of soft sand to get off again, and we were back to the hotel for several more well-deserved Boag’s XXX and dinner.
My hatred of sand riding still fairly passionate, we headed off the next morning for the trip through Queenstown and up onto the high plateau area of central Tasmania, this time with the “red” group under Simon Pavey’s wing. The entire trip until morning tea was on bitumen, and some sections were truly enjoyable in particular the relentlessly winding road out of Queenstown heading up the hill to Gormanston. The end of a high-speed trip saw us at Derwent Bridge for a long stop for coffee and a visit to The Wall, a very impressive 10 year project carved in 3m high Huon pine panels over 100m in length by artist Greg Duncan showing Tasmanian pioneering scenes and stories.
The stability of bitumen was quickly a fond memory as we headed off bush again, including one fairly nasty section of large rocks and mud up a power line access track. The lesson learned was to keep the head up and pick the best line, and avoid staring at the ground in front of the tyre which inevitably leads into the seventh circle of hell. A few anxious moments on some nasty bush roads, and a lot of slow speed manoeuvring exercises around trees, and then we were in the central lakes district for another magnificent Compass Expeditions supplied picnic lunch.
The afternoon was a relatively fast paced run on farm roads replete with cows and the odd dead wombat (note to self – never collide with a wombat, living or deceased). Our final challenge for the day was a circuit of a hydro dam canal system on a track sheeted with golf ball sized sharp rocks, I decided to keep up with Simon Pavey as I assumed he was riding at a fairly fast pace for a technical reason on such an obnoxious surface. We eventually arrived at a hotel at Miena on the Great Lake tired and sore but happy. After a fun evening in the cold and misty Tasmanian highlands with a few wines and beers, it was off to the cabin to get some sleep ready for the final day.
There was no easing down planned for the “red” group on the final day led by Simon Hewitt the Off Road Skills General Manager, and it was probably the most technically demanding with a lot of riding and sometimes pushing and dragging the bikes through scrub, deeply rutted tracks, over almost non-existent bridges, and through creeks. At one point we were dodging around forestry equipment harvesting a plantation, they didn’t seem to care.
We knew that the lunch venue was Ben Lomond, which is a mountain about 1½ hours from Launceston, so it was with relief that we finally started to climb up out of the forests in the early afternoon. Ben Lomond is about 1,600m high and actually has a ski resort, and is only accessible via a gravel road named Jacob’s Ladder which climbs a very steep slope via sharp switchbacks. After all our training and experiences during the week, the climb actually turned out to be quite easy as long as you kept your eye off the views and didn’t try to cut the corners.
Yet another great lunch was very much welcomed and while we were sitting inside enjoying it, after eight days of fine weather the rain couldn’t wait any longer and started to come down heavily. The afternoon riding plan was a bit of a mystery, but with Off Road Skills the challenges normally keep coming until the proverbial Fat Lady crashes. When we turned off a track and Simon Hewitt asked if we were up for a final challenge, as “red” group he-men we had no choice but to say yes and follow. The persistent rain made the long trip down steep tracks and over wet grass and mud more of a slide than a ride, but eventually we got to the bottom and after a final glorious fast race down a long flat section of actual farm road with watching cows, the Fat Lady crashed and the bitumen was reached.
The “red” group was the last group to arrive back to the hotel in Launceston, by which time the “green” and “black” groups were into full swing at the bar and again there were no dim sims. Claims that there hadn’t been any to start with just didn’t wash. The camaraderie levels after two days of the training course and five days of riding under such challenging conditions was very high – we had all helped each other along the way, and most importantly always kept the humour up which makes a big difference when things are getting tough. After a final celebration dinner with the group and lots of swapping of photos, it was off to the room to wash the putrescent riding gear and get some sleep.
The final day was officially declared a “dirt road free holiday” by Cindy and I as we were now back in charge of the route planning. A suggested ride to the fabulous Boat Harbour on the North West coast was abandoned as we didn’t have enough time to fit it around the mandatory hot chocolate at the Anvers chocolate factory in Latrobe, but we did make it to some of our other favourite spots including a nice lunch at Penguin. A quick wash of the bikes in the afternoon back in Devonport and it was into the queue and reuniting with many of our riding group to get back on the ferry, before dinner and few beers with the Off Road Skills group. Discussion was mainly centred on the exploits of Llewellyn Pavey’s hamster named Edward, dispelling the theory that tyres are the only topic of conversation among riders.
As per the schedule we were ready to ride off at Port Melbourne at 6:30am, this time veterans of the elastic band around the front brake lever. A ride into the city was required as the bikes were going straight off to the GS Safari for someone different to practice lesson one on, and it was back to Brisbane, sore, tired, but very satisfied that we’d got through a great experience in some of Australia’s most beautiful country.
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