The last day on the island, solo motorbike camping Tasmania on a Royal Enfield - S1-E13

I woke up just before sunrise looking out of the tent thinking yep this was a pretty good place to camp but it was time to pack up and get back on the road. I made my way along the dirt track to get back out onto the main road. The road out of the bay was to the right but I took a left to take a quick look at the southern end of the Bay of Fires, Binalong Bay. And this is why this ends so popular, easy access and just stunning. Sorry I keep saying it. The Bay of Fires was named by Captain Tobias Fernone in 1773 after he saw many aboriginal fires burning on its shore. The orange colour on the rocks is produced by a lichen which is a composite organism that arises from algae living amongst multiple fungi species. So that covers the I rode through St Helens then I took a right turn so I could keep heading north along the coast. I was happy to be back on another Tasmanian dirt road through another forest. This one they were doing maintenance on. I came upon a bicycle head sign. This is where I crossed the Bay of Fires trail. It starts the blue tier and is a 42 kilometre mountain bike trail with the first 21 kilometres mostly downhill. That's my kind of trail. It is one of the many trails along with mountain bike parks like Medina, Queenstown, Derby that make Tasmania the mecca of mountain biking in Australia. I had a bee fly into my helmet. I'm not allergic but prefer not to get stuck so I pulled over to double check that it made it out safely. Tasmania is known for its outdoor adventure activity. It looks like you can hide it in the Anson River if you like. I made it to Anson's Bay Turnoff, one of the only small communities in the northeast. The area is really sparsely populated which is a little weird as the coastline is so beautiful. I was making my way towards Cape Portland, the tip of the northeast point of Tasmania. This is the Muscle Row Wind Farm and it is the largest of the three wall north wind farms in Tasmania. It has 56 Vesta's V9 wind turbines giving a total install capacity of 168 megawatts. The towers are 80 metres high with blades that are 44 metres long. It produces about five percent of Tasmania's electrical energy needs. Well the first spot I looked at is on private land again like the northwest but quick detour round and to this beach and the peninsula most northern northeast side of the island and then just out here are the chain of islands that are off the northeast of Tasmania. Birney I think this one is. I wonder if one of these islands is the snake island just covered in snakes. Not one to be camped on and it is windy and that's why there's wind farms up here but past those islands is the mainland. I'm not gonna swim. It's amazing in Tasmania how many beaches you can actually get just yourself and I'm not talking any beach like a pristine gorgeous beach crystal clear water white white sand stunning and nobody. So now back on the bike heading south towards Derby. I was intrigued if I'd actually be able to hear the wind turbines so I pulled over. I could barely hear the faint sound of wind passing the blades the low hum but I really had to focus on it. Maybe you need to be closer to really hear anything. On this ride I searched out a pink lake now I stumbled across a blue one which is part of an old tin mine. The lake is called fittingly but no points for creativity little blue lake. The difference between this lake and the pink lake I found in western Victoria is unlike the pink lake which you can swim in this one it's recommended not to swim in as the mineral content is so high. This is the town of Pioneer and it is like a lot of small towns in Tasmania which were established around a mine but the mines have since closed down leading to the town's population dropping and the vibrancy and opportunity disappearing. But there is one small town that has reinvented itself by again using its natural resources but instead of digging them out of the ground it's all about riding over the top and that town is this town Derby the mountain bike mecca which has hosted rounds of the mountain bike world enduro series and twice has had trails named world trail of the year. They opened the first trails in February 2015 with 20 kilometers. Now in the area there is over 125 kilometers of incredible trails. The town is now full of bike stores, places to eat, new accommodation, new buildings and shows what is possible when people come up with a great idea. During the pandemic I got stuck here for a while spending weeks on these trails by myself. I mean if you have to hang out somewhere for a while and you happen to have a mountain bike with you it's a great place to be and the trails definitely live up to the hype. But you do have to share the trails with locals. I think I came across 10 tiger snakes in a couple of days at one stage. I then spotted something I'd been searching for the whole trip on the left hand side so I pulled over. The locals came towards me and seemed very interested in what I was doing. I wanted to take a photo of a field of hay bales that created a pattern and I'd found an ideal field. The next place I wanted to check out was Low Head at the mouth of the Tamar River. I spotted what looked like a shortcut on the map so I took it. I then took a small sandy track hoping it would get me to the beach but ended in a dead end so back I went. Side note here, at the Low Head conservation area you can watch the Low Head penguin colony come ashore to their burrows each night. This is the lighthouse at Low Head. You'd expect the other side of the Tamar River to be High Head. No, it's just West Head. Actually Greens Beach is before that so I don't know where they got the naming from. A signal station was set up at Low Head in 1805 and the Tamar River has Australia's oldest continually used pilot station. When a sail was sighted at dusk a fire was lit and kept burning all night to keep the vessel in touch with the port. After a review in 1827 it was decided to build a lighthouse at Low Head. The lighthouse was built in 1833 and was Australia's third lighthouse. It was time to head back to Devonport and the ferry to get back to the mainland but there was one thing I had to do. You aren't allowed to have fuel in any jerry cans on the ferry so I needed to empty out the last of the fuel in my jerry cans. It was a simple process of taking off the jerry can, flipping around the nozzle, opening the other cap to let in air while I put the fuel in. To Devonport, the caravan park at Mersey Bluff I think it's called. I'm bad with names. I think it's called Mersey Bluff and yeah just to set up tent and then nothing really until the morning. The campsite's pretty good, right on the water, although my next door neighbours there's a graveyard. I'm sure I'll be fine. The bonus is there should be no noise and anyway there's a fence between me and them. It was time to pitch the tent. Ah the joys of trying to set up a super light tent in the wind. And that's my last tent set up in Tasmania. I've had this tent since 2016 from doing through hiking in California. It is super light at 900 grams and it is in the same condition as when I first got it so it's really durable and it packs down quite small which is also a bonus with limited space on the bike. And the bike? Well so far it's been perfect for the type of riding I'm doing. Exploring. It's comfortable to sit on. The standing position is good for off-road. It's good on dirt roads and trails. It sits on highway speeds fine, although I try to avoid highways as they're not normally where all the interesting stuff is. So yeah it's pretty perfect for my type of riding. I thought I'd check out the last of the sunlight I'd see in Tasmania on this trip. It's quite a special place this island. I've used the word stunning way way too many times to describe places but that's what happens when you see each new place. You draw drops. You don't speak. You just stare at the beauty of the place. I got into my tent and as I laid there I was excited for what the next chapter of this journey would bring.