My time in Roseberry was unsettling – since picking my keys up from a letter box fourteen hours ago, and subsequently returning them to the same letter box, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen or smelled or heard another soul in that entire time.
What was especially strange, was the poster hanging outside the closed reception, a wide black and white aerial shot of a B&S ball from the past, with all attendees facing the camera. And there, just towards the middle, in a singlet and footy shorts, someone who looked just like me…
The ride from Roseberry to Queenstown was not fun. It had rained all night and was still raining. I checked the forecast, it would also be raining tomorrow. The higher I climbed a mountain the harder the wind and rain pierced my jacket, and the lower I climbed the thicker the soup of mist pouring from the apex gathered before my visor. I was a horrible combination of cold and on the wrong side of the state.
The Motorcycle Fallacy:
Even a light drizzle can feel like a storm if you go fast enough, but the slower you go, the longer it will take you to arrive at the Sizzlers Family Restaurant ft. roaring fire place that you’ve assured yourself is in Queenstown.
Middle: The sky (not pictured: torrential rain)
Right: Bacon Sandwich – pretty good
I stopped in Queenstown for a change of socks and a bacon sandwich (not Sizzler, still good). It took me three minutes to regain the power of speech, and fifteen to gather the hand dexterity to remove my phone from my pocket. After placing every item of clothing I owned on my body, I knew there was only one way I was getting to my AirBnB in Hobart, and it wasn’t some secret tunnel that I thought might be a good idea, no, it was through the downfall.
I felt like a reincarnate version of Radar from M*A*S*H – a lessor man like that bum Hawkeye would have found shelter and waited out the rain, but I was a man with a mission. Plus, I was on a military-style motorbike, so you can see how it wasn’t a hard connection to make.
And so I pushed on… clearly pretty proud of myself for facing some adversity for once.
A fun tidbit about motorcyclists that only motorcyclists (and now you!) know:
- Biker, whenever you see a fellow biker, you shall give them a small upward head nod;
1A. Unless they are on a Harley-Davidson, because Harley-Davidson riders are
too cool for the nonsense.
The head nodding aspect of bike riding is my favourite part, and more than justifies the disproportionate reality of being involved in a road fatality. However, on this cold and slick roads, as fellow bike-men trailed past me, no head nodding was had. None of us would endorse this slippery freezing madness. I could even tell that the cars and trucks were overtaking me in an empathetic way.
Between Queenstown and Mount Derwent Bridge, a particular motorist, who had been following me quite closely, almost too closely, definitely too closely actually, grabbed my attention. It seemed he wanted to get passed, so as a citizen of the world I decided I would pull off to the side for him.
I pulled onto some wet gravel to the side of the road, and squeezed my front brake while down-shifting.
The bike shifted from under me, I went over the handlebars, and in my mind, did a backflip. In reality, in my transit from bike to ground, my hip-bone snapped off my left mirror. The bike’s still spinning back wheel reminded me of Lawrence of Arabia, and would have made a great Boomerang, if there wasn’t fuel leaking everywhere.
Fortunately the driver who, lets be honest, pushed me off the road, saw this, and pulled over in front of me. He ran back to where I was laying, wiped the dust from my brow, and helped me repair and refuel. We starting talking about podcasts, he gave me his business card, and then we went our separate ways.
Only none of that happened. Getting the bike up was easy, but removing it from the ditch it had landed in was a calculating and gruelling process of brute force and brake-control, set to a backdrop of continuing rainfall.
I rode for about fifteen minutes, before I reached Frenchman’s Cap, a small wooden hut like a bus stop, in a car park. It was still raining here too. I took off my helmet, and sat in foetal position in the corner of the hut, telling myself there was only so much water in the world, and by that logic it would have to stop raining soon, and I could probably make it to Hobart without checking my left lane.
Suddenly a hiking party interrupted my pity party. A Tasmania, a Frenchman, and Two Brazillians walked into my hut. They’d gone 20 kilometres into the forest the day before, and were now returning.
We debated whose hobby was dumber, and given mine had landed me on my ass, I lost. They then explained that the tingling feeling in my extremities was actually not normal, and perhaps I should change my socks again. Finally, they made me a coffee, offered me some whiskey (which I declined), and just like that, they were gone.
And then it stopped raining. I think those people might actually have been angels.
The rest of the day was pretty good. I rode through the misty remnants of post-bushfire forests, along mountain sheer ranges , and even saw an echidna who I named Bazzle! As has been the common theme of this blog, I didn’t take any photos of any of these ineffable sceneries. I finally arrived in Hobart.
Tasmania tried to break me today. Something can be said for a beautiful state sometimes turning harsh, but it should be said by volunteer firefighters or flood survivors, not bloggers adorned in three soaked jumpers.
I will say this though, I reserve the right to reinstate my victim status when I post photos of my bruises tomorrow.
Fear And Loathing In Launceston 