That’s how quickly we covered 4 days of cycling effort today! It was a bit of an aimless day that turned out to contain a few gems. A sleep in and a late start set the tone for the day that ended up mostly being a leisurely drive in gorgeous sunny (if brisk) weather.
On leaving we immediately began to pass closed wineries. Being Good Friday we expected quite a lot of this. Milton (the excellent wine from last night) – closed, Coombend – closed. But suddenly joy! A flurry of wine tasting resulted in two bottles of riesling in the bag and a near miss on an $80 pinot noir!
We took a detour up to Douglas Apsley NP. We’d skipped this last trip as the thought of an extra 15k on an already long day had been too much. Boy were we wrong! A lovely route up a very gently sloping valley to a hidden waterhole would have been just the ticket on a hot day! Today was too cold too swim (actually, anyone who knows me well will know that it’s never too cold for a swim for me, it was just that we hadn’t done anything to work up a sweat) but I did assemble the mtb for a quick 7km back down the valley. Glorious.
Lunch today was a disappointment. We went to Ironhouse Brewery, another missed opportunity last time, but it turned out to have only average food and to be full of families. Not our scene.
We really enjoyed driving up the long climb to the Weldborough Pass. That was a long ride last time that I have no urge to repeat. Since we were here there’s been some more big rains and we passed a number of sections of road that had been washed out.
The Weldborough Hotel was as welcome a sight as last time. It’s such a lovely setting. This time it’s teeming with people here for the walking, mountain biking, motorcycling. We’ve got a good tip on where to ride tomorrow and are spending the evening drinking local Tassie brews.
Notable food and wine moments: Bulmers Cider.
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