Day 1: Launceston to Sheffield

Posted by Melissa on | March 9, 2008

Launceston > Evandale > Deloraine > Sheffield

MC 126kms, BB 140kms

We head out of Launceston - a fairly straightforward pedal past City Park and through a few traffic lights (the last we will see for 5 days).

We ride through the smell of cut straw and earth turned and ready for the next crop of spuds. And road kill. Wallabies, kangaroos and wombats, possums, domestic cats, birds, echidnas and even Tassie Devils; all dead on the side of the road.

We move through farmland along a road fringed with blackberries and brambles - 24 kilometres to Evandale, home of an annual penny-farthing race that was held for the 100th time the weekend before. The finish line is still chalked across the main street where we find a bakery that is heaving with biscuits and preserves.

Over coffee we start to get to know our little pedalling family - Simon (our guide), Stu (his brother-in-law and a Collingwood dweller), Collin (a GP from Newcastle), Steve (‘Dash’) from Hobart, and Noosa cyclists Peter (a real estate agent), and retiree and occasional bike guide in Europe, John. Sam is our dynamic guide - a logistics magician, cheerful energetic force, driver of the support vehicle and generous camp mother.

Another 60 kilometres through rural scenery but we ‘bonk’ (for non-cyclists: a technical term that means running out of food) before reaching our lunch spot (over the bridge, by the river). Sam revives our flagging bodies with a huge picnic spread and a good big wedge of Simon’s mother’s carrot cake.

To the hills and we plunge with heart in throat up the Gog - a brutal ascent with a gradient of 16 per cent that sorts out the boys from the girls. This girl gets off and walked some of the way in her socks, happy to be taking in the views without the pain. I decide against tackling the Gogette - a slightly smaller incline - and so am able to take some pics of Ben and Simon tackling the last 16kms into our temporary home - Sheffield.