25/01/12 (Overcast and cold morning - beautiful & sunny day)
Had a great sleep. Slept in until 0630. Getting lazy :-) Checked out the clutch cable and decided to call Shearwater Motorcycles for a new cable. Yep, they had one in stock so off I headed. 100 - 110kph road most of the way with good Harley sweepers. I noticed that the bike had a slight vibration on the tighter corners at speed. Hmmmm ??

When I pulled up at Shearwater I checked the back tyre. Yep, replacement time !!! Luckily, even though it was a job that I could do, I asked them to replace the cable whilst they were replacing my back tyre. (It had done 16,200km). It turned out the cable was the wrong one !! Lucky, as I would have ridden back to Burnie before replacing it myself !! The mechanic tried two others before finding the right one :-) With the new pirelli tyre, fitting, the installation of the cable and a new RHF blinker I was $410 broker !! The mechanic had wiped the tyre down with acetone to remove most of the wax but said to take a bit of care for the first 80 - 100k. The new tyre had a harder compound in the middle and softer sides. Perfect for straights and curves !! :-). On the way back, after the tyre had warmed up a bit I really lent the bike into the corners. Bliss !! No vibrating in the corners :-) No worrying about how long it would last :-)

Poppy Anyone ??

About 10k out I decided to have a look around some of the back roads and came across large paddocks with signs all along them saying 'Keep Out - Use of this product may cause death'. What the hell was it ?? I stopped and had a look, poppies !! Some were flowering and they were white, not red, but they were, I found out, medical grade poppies !! Apparently Tasmania grows over 50% of the worlds legal medical grade poppies.   By the time I arrived back to Burnie it was late (1600) so just looked at and admired the new back tyre, oiled the chain and covered the bike for the night.








27/01/12 (Drizzly wet morning - Fine & Sunny afternoon !!)
When I left Burnie it was a grey overcast morning with light icy rain :-( 40k out of Stanley it stopped raining and I was back lighter layers :-) I had been travelling through dairy country for some time. You could smell the silage, and the cows !! The Nutt stood out some 20k out of Stanley. I drove straight up the the Nutt car park and had a look at the walkway that led to the top, Hmmm  Was I going to tackle THAT steep climb ?? That cable car looks interesting ! I've only got motorcycle boots so the cable car it is !! :-)

The Nutt at Stanley !! 

What a climb !!

The bay from the top of the Nutt

Stairs, Stairs and more %^%$ Stairs !!

The Stanley wharf

The other side, looking Westward 

It's a long way down,

The car park.It was a good 2k walk around the top..  Apparently it was heavily covered with trees when people began to settle there but most of the area was denuded to be used as building timber and the cleared area ploughed and used to grow potatoes !!  What a climb to get  few spuds !!!

The township of Arthur River

From there I headed to Arthur River for a squiz. From Stanley to Merrawah ( about 16k out of Arthur River was dairy farm after dairy farm. Beautiful looking country with rolling hills and cows !!  Everywhere !!! As you passed the milking sheds all you could smell was cows !!

The Arthur River Tourist boat

 Arthur River was a small place straddling the river. Mostly gravel roads and no CBD at a ll. Not even fuel !! I still had more than enough to get back to the next fuel stop. I camped there for the night. As usual, it was bloody cold !! a hot coffee and a bowl of hot muesli in the morning fixed my shivers though.





28/01/12 (Bright and Sunny Day)
From here I headed back to the 600ha sinkhole in the Tarkine national forest called 'The Dismal Swamp', a delightful name, I thought.. It was different to the national forests in the South to the state. Bloody big trees but much drier. Hardley any moss and not much in the way of tree ferns. Most of the pathways were timber decking with a fair bit of soggy ground AND one thing I had not noticed before - mosquitoes !!!!! Hungry little beggars so I did not stay as long as I would have liked.

Tarkine forest

Can just make out the edge on the other side !!

From here to Smithton to restock and then toward Beaconsfield. Mostly by any side road I saw that would keep me off the Harley Roads. I stopped at a small beach for lunch. Bricklayers Beach it was called but no bricks or bricklayers to be found :-) From there to a back road that ran along the cliffs. Occasionally, between the roadway and the sea, there were homes surrounded by large huon pines which went almost down to the water !!  Be-au-t-iful !!!  Some of them were for sale. What a beautiful place to have  home, overlooking the Bass Strait !!

The area where the houses were overlooking the Bass Strait

 A bit further on I took a detour to a site overlooking the sea. It was called Table Cape. Like the Nutt at Stanley it was a volcanic plug. The volcano had eroded away leaving the much harder plug. What a fantastic view !! You could almost see forever !! Down to the right, across the poppy fields was a lighthouse. !!

More poppies and the Lighthouse

All this casual riding and detouring entailed talking to fellow motorcyclists about the great roads and have I been to ???. and to ???  What a great lazy day !!. I gave up trying to get to Beauty Bay and decided to head to the coastal town of Penguin and to follow the coastline, literally !!  Fantastic curvy roads, little beach
, small parks, homes and interesting small shops all along the road. I ended up passing a van park at Ulverstone, looked at the time, and decided to stay there for the night. The beach was just behind the low shrubbery so I should be able to hear it tonight :-)