Total: 683km
Weather: 30 sunny
This morning I said my final farewells to Hobart and a few of the lovely people I spent time with there. I'm getting used to the farewell thing now, but its always a bit hard to leave. I think this is made even more so difficult by the fact I don't know where I'm riding, all I know is that at the end of the day I'll be buggered and I'll need to find a place to sleep. I had a good sleep at Louise's place again last night, and after a bit of bike maintenance this morning I was ready to go yet again.
I shot off in the direction of Orford, a coastal town east of Tassie about 80 odd km away. The path I took was along the Tasman hwy. This also involved riding over the bridge out of Hobart, daunting to say the least. A few people told me about a path on the side of the bridge, but from the direction I went I had no chance of getting on it. I also had no intention of wasting time trying to get on it, when with a bit of confidence and brute force on the bike I got over the bridge pretty quickly. I actually had a bloke yell down from the bike lane above, in great shock, "Geez!! Great courage, good effort!!!". Made me realise at that point that I was perhaps part of a select few that have actually cycled side by side with cars on the bridge.
After some hard yakka on the freeway I stopped and ate some lovely cherries and apricots at a local cart on the side of the road. I'm loving the fact I'm here for fruit season, as this was one thing I was disappointed about when leaving Melbourne. I didn't realise that Tassies climate still allows for the same seasonal fruits as Melbourne. In saying this I haven't seen any pomegranate, or fig trees. I have seen a lot of orchard gardens around Tassie. Pears, apples, cherry plums (delicious), abundant apricot trees and also nectarine or something similar.
The organic scene, combined with a fresh clean sea side feel and close to some mountain ranges, has really made me contemplate moving to Tassie. Perhaps in the future when I'm a bit more settled I could look at it as an option.
After a bit of hunting around and after a refreshing swim I found a free camp ground 2km out of Orford. The site doesn't have any services, just a secure area to camp in. At the site I set up near by a married couple and a bit further away an old bloke who enjoyed his beers and his fishing. I had a good chat with them on different occasions. The old bloke has a camper van and travels around by himself fishing, sleeping in and enjoying his beers. He said his wife doesn't like to join, proclaiming she's "Un-Australian!"..
The other couple spoke about ethnicities in Australia and how they believe many aren't assimilating. I could understand points of there discussion, and other points not. A bit later on after the conversation the bloke saw my bike with the Aboriginal flag dangling behind and all of the sudden looked a little awkward..
Tomorrow I'm planning to ride 100 odd km's into Bischeno.
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