The Cormanus Chronicles - The Three Strikes Ride

[pdedse]

Chapter 7

Strike 2! In which Cormanus rides with more mates, reaches his destination.
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[url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qE9y4nn7sVhTLD-zkZfgY1MDvoZwxEMb&usp=sharing]Link to Map

The plan for the day was to meet my mate Graham and a friend of his at Deloraine where we would breakfast before riding to Hobart. We planned to meet about 0800 but I was off the ferry by 0600 and would have had a very long wait had I ridden straight to Deloraine. Graham and his mate were staying at Mole Creek, which, as luck would have it, is far more run to ride to than the main road to Deloraine. It even passes through Paradise. Why would I not decide to ride to their hotel to meet them?

It was cold after the heat of the mainland and I soon found myself stopping to put liners in my jacket and don heavier gloves.

I recall writing before about the search for Paradise and how, even though I saw the signs, I never found it. I had a similar experience this time. Like so many things in this life Paradise is entirely illusory. The signs are there, but you never seem to arrive and suddenly realise the signs point back the way you came. Still the road on which it allegedly lies is pretty enough for an early morning warm-up ride.
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Apparently Paradise is in there somewhere

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Only moments later it’s behind me.

Graham and his mate Stewart gave me a cup of tea while they organised themselves. Their hotel carried a fine example of the Australian fascination with ‘Big Things’; in this case, a Big [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine]Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger.
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It is slightly more distinguished than this one at Waratah that Pterodactyl and I saw on an earlier ride.


When they were ready, we rode the 24 kms to Deloraine. We ordered food and made our way to a table. Nearby a bloke was indulging in the breakfast of champions: a large plate of eggs and bacon washed down with a couple of bottles of James Boag’s Premium lager. Even for me that’s a bit early in the day.

Leaving Deloraine we headed onto the Central Plateau, where sealing of the road alongside the Great Lake had finally been completed. It was a cool but pleasant day as we made our way up the northern end of the mountains along a well-made and thoroughly enjoyable road. It was obviously built in the days when road alignments included corners and gradual ascents.
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Climbing to Tasmania’s central plateau

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On the central plateau

At the southern end of the Great Lake—artificially enlarged to store water for the generation of electricity—the road straightens and heads down a more gradual descent into Bothwell. It was a good deal warmer there and, when we stopped for a cup of coffee, we shed layers.

The Hollow Tree Road leads from Bothwell to just east of Hamilton and is a fun and popular motorcycle road. We took it and then endured a very hot wait for road works before then riding carefully through about a kilometre of fresh bitumen. Blech! It was then a clear run to a place called Plenty where salmon breeding ponds offer a tourist destination and a café which offered us a decent lunch.
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On the Hollow Tree Road

Stewart left us in New Norfolk, just down the road, and Graham and I had a decent run to Hobart where I was to be based for a couple of nights before my sailing venture.

I stopped at my son’s business and we were chatting about the broken throttle. I decided to move the bike into the car park to pull the throttle controls off the bike to see if I could see what needed replacing. Turns out I’d broken the lug off the engine end of the push cable and so ordered a new one, which I hoped would arrive before I had to head back to Brisbane. I say ‘hoped’ because the man at the dealer told me it had to be ordered from Japan.

Let me describe the car park. It’s behind an old house that’s been converted into offices. The building is on the side of a hill and the car park is accessed via a gate from a side street. The access slopes both from right to left and from back to front; in other words, you’re traversing the side of a hill. After a short stretch of seal, you’re on gravel.

Almost as soon as I’d left the seal, I turned the bike to the right with its nose up the main hill and parked it.

Having figured the problem and put the bike back together, I had to roll backwards and turn the rear wheel to the right so I could point my nose down the hill to ride down and make a turn to exit the car park. The slope was too uneven to go the other way. As the rear wheel hit the seal, the bike decided another nap was in order. This time my large bag didn’t protect it and the clutch lever broke. Strike 2!

Another order from the dealer and another minor scratch on the engine. For a bit, I gave in to a nagging worry about whether two in two was two too many. Should I hang up my boots?

Sometimes we just don't realize how good we have it until it's no longer there.