TAS day 20: Mt Field to Wayatinah

January 15, 2016. 63km.

Last night was quite chilly. I think it was at least in the low 40s, probably into the 30s. My sleeping bag stood up to the job though, and I only woke up once to readjust things to keep out a draft. Still, it did mean that I wasn’t all that eager to get out of the tent in the morning chill. Cuddled in my sleeping bag, I fell asleep again and woke up again at 8 or so. I packed up, cleaned my bike chain, and then since it was nearly 10 by that point I stopped by the (now open) park cafe for coffee and lemon shortbread. It was about 11 by the time I got on the road. By that time the day had become basically perfect for biking. A bit chilly before starting, but nice once I started pedaling.

I don’t think that there exist actually flat roads in Tasmania. Especially not in the west half. Today was lots of up and down, but just warm up for the rest of the west coast, I think. A lot of the route was on the A10, which is basically the only road that goes over to the west coast. I was worried that there would be traffic, but it turns out to be extremely light. I guess nobody really wants to go around to the west coast. Probably most of the traffic goes up through the middle on highway 1.

I’ve definitely moved away from the ocean now. However,  there seems to be more water of the non ocean variety in this part of the island. The little ponds in fields are ponds instead of cracked earth. Some of the fields are actually green. And the grass along the side of the road is at least green at the bottom.

The first part of the day was through farmland. I stopped for lunch by a nice lake with a long one-lane bridge taking the road over a narrow spot.

 There were a lot of hills, as usual. But to get some variety from Tasmania, I apparently ended up going through Ohio. 

Then it was back to hills, but at least these were rather pretty and forested.

Near the end of the day I saw another of the signs that pop up fairly frequently around here. Every time I see one my sense of geometry gets challenged.

In the middle of basically nothing, there was a side road to the extremely small village of Wayatinah. The town is quite tiny, but there’s a caravan park. The owner and her husband were quite friendly, but the place wasn’t anything exciting. It seems that a lot of people live there long term, since most of the caravans had structures built up around them. But the owner did suggest a shortcut for tomorrow that substitutes 20km of unpaved but relatively flat road for the steep descent into and then equally steep ascent out of Triabunna.

A short walk from the caravan park was the actual village of Wayatinah, which has a tavern which served me a fried seafood basket. I’m rather fond of fried seafood, and feel better about eating it after biking all day. Still, the tavern was too empty for my taste (I would rather disappear into the background) so I ate and left and went to bed early.