Tasmanian Trail

[lukey]

Currently residing in Canada, but I have an upcoming family reunion in Tasmania in January 2010.  While I'm there, I'm planning a ride of the Tasmanian Trail.  Perfect time to do it...the airport is near one end of the trail and the reunion is near the other.  Too convenient!

Anybody on here who is planning on being on the trail in January?

Is there anyone who has experience with the ride?  I have a few questions...

[ScottM]

I don't have any experience, but would love to hear about yours after you go! 

I'd try emailing the folks that promote/organize the trail.  I've emailed them before and found them quite responsive.  I have the guidebook for the trail and I'd recommend ordering it if you don't already have it.  It seems pretty good and may answer some of your questions.

[lukey]

I'd recommend ordering it if you don't already have it.  It seems pretty good and may answer some of your questions.

Ahh...good point.  I've been meaning to order it, but hadn't yet gotten around to it.  I think I'll put that on my high priority list.  Thanks for the reminder.

I'll post up here again for sure once I have a report. 

[stevage]

In case you haven't already read it: http://www.bikepacking.net/tripreports/the-tasmanian-trail/

I might be interested, maybe post again closer to the date - depends on work etc. (I live in Melbourne, so it's not so hard to do at short notice.) Certainly looks convenient: take the ferry to Devenport, ride the trail to Dover, then ride 80ks to Hobart to fly back. (Or the reverse). Of course the ferry is more expensive than flying (grrr) but much less hassle with the bike I think.

[lukey]

I've been reading all the trip reports I can find!  Thanks for pointing out this link.

It has been hard to have a detailed idea of what the route is like on a day-by-day and mile-by-mile basis.  I've been almost 100% limited to the information I can discover online.  Campsite options and services along the route have been a bit hard to discover.  Unfortunately, the guide book is currently out of print.  I contacted a 1/2 dozen bookstores in and around Tasmania hoping to find a copy on a shelf without any luck.

This site has also been pretty useful:
http://tastrail.wikispaces.com/
(You're not the same Stevage are you?)

Many links to other trip reports can be found there.

Unless something changes and I can locate the guidebook, I have a feeling this is shaping up to be quite a navigational adventure...

My only choice is traveling in the Dover > Devonport direction.  My timing will be around Jan 14 - Jan 21.

[stevage]

>Unfortunately, the guide book is currently out of print.  I contacted a 1/2 dozen bookstores in and around Tasmania hoping to find a copy on a shelf without any luck.

Argh. Such a common story, and so freaking annoying. What seems to happen is:
1) Volunteers get together to create an amazing long distance trail of some kind
2) They produce a book, or maps, or something, which they decide to sell as a way to finance the project
3) They don't think much about distribution, and print small runs, which are only available by mail order, allow 8 to 12 weeks for delivery...
4) Over the years, the books/maps become impossible to obtain.

It seems completely counterproductive to me to create a trail, encourage people to visit it, then lock up all the information they need to do so.

Other examples: the Great Dividing Trail (maps are at least distributed through one retail outlet, but they have to order them in - and they're overpriced, and the maps themselves are far inferior to the topo maps of the same price), the Bicentennial National Trail (you need lots of maps, they get expensive quickly, and very slowly delivery...), etc. Maybe I'm just a child of the internet, but all this information should be freely available on the web to help decide if you even want to do the trail...

>You're not the same Stevage are you?

Nah, never been to that website before. Certainly not the guy on that trip...

[mtb4x4mad]

Your best bet for obtaining a copy of the guidebook is to email peter_fehre at yahoo.com.au, replacing the at with an @ of course. I dealt directly with Peter and ordered a copy online - he's very good to deal with. I bought my copy late 2008 and it's edition 2, which came out in 1999. As a result, there are several discrepancies, but you deal with these as you come up against them - the website also has a list of errata.

I'd be happy to answer any questions about the parts of the trail that I've covered (Dover to Bracknell) if you post them up.

Note also that the guidebook is written as if travelling from Devonport to Dover, meaning that those travelling from Dover to Devonport will have to decipher the directions and distances.

As I wrote in the trip report, I got lost for several hours over 3 days, adding to the distance covered and time spent travelling - expect this and be willing to take it in your stride as it's bound to happen and is amazingly frustrating when time is an issue.

[lukey]

Your best bet for obtaining a copy of the guidebook is to email peter_fehre at yahoo.com.au

I'd be happy to answer any questions about the parts of the trail that I've covered (Dover to Bracknell) if you post them up.

Thanks for this tip.  I've emailed Peter and hope this will be sorted out.

The whole trip is kind of a big unknown.  I just can't get much of a feel for what I'll be finding along the way.  I guess that is partly appealing, actually.   Right now, I have little information about camping, water, food supplies and other services available along the route.  Will I need to be fully self-supported, or can I count on simply finding stuff and resupplying along the way?

I have decided to ride in the direction of the guide book now, for various reasons.

Is there anything special you think I ought to know in particular?

Thanks!

[lukey]

OK, I have received an email back from Peter.

The new Trail Guidebook will be available next week, and it will be a PDF download with two years of updates for about $15AUD, payable online.  This is an ideal arrangement!  No worries about running out of printed copies, and I don't have to deal with shipping or figure out a bookshop who I can order it from etc.

I noticed this morning that the site has been changed to reflect this.
http://www.tasmaniantrail.com.au/Pages/Guidebook.html

[stevage]

Ah, that looks like a good arrangement - look forward to hearing your report.

[lukey]

Note also that the guidebook is written as if travelling from Devonport to Dover, meaning that those travelling from Dover to Devonport will have to decipher the directions and distances.

So I have received the latest edition of the book.  On the left margin is a mileage/distance column from North to South, and the middle has a route description/points-of-interest/notes/GPS-coords and the right margin has a mileage/distance column South to North.

If you are traveling north, the turns and directions read backwards but the distances will work either way, depending on which column you refer to.  I gather this is a major improvement.

The book is quite comprehensive.  It's basically like a huge cue-sheet.  It has every imaginable bit of info I think might come in handy.  For example, it gives directions for alternate routes, shopping, special notes on the terrain for bikes...all kinds of stuff.

I'll let everyone know about the accuracy in a couple of months...

[mtb4x4mad]

I'll let everyone know about the accuracy in a couple of months...

It's close-ish...

[lukey]

It's close-ish...

I know exactly what you mean...I just spent a bunch of hours poring over all the route maps.

The mapbook is an encrypted PDF.  It wasn't straightforward to produce an isolated map graphic for each map page within the book.  But I managed to rip the maps out...somehow. 

Put all these maps into Topofusion as a user map overlay and began the laborious process of stitching the pages together and tracing the route.

Good exercise to have gone through!  I can already tell there's definitely a few funny/vague things within the maps.  For one obvious thing, the scale legend on the pages always shows as the same exact scale on each page, but these maps are at totally different levels of magnification.  What a complete joke!

Some pages show 4 times the actual area of others.  The scale is dramatically different, but the legend makes it seem as if each map shows a terrain slice that is consistently the same size.  In fact, if you were looking for a turn based on mileage and the image of the map according to the scale, you couldn't get in the ballpark.

As I worked on the fitment of the map pages to my geometrically correct background topo map, it quickly become obvious that  many of the maps have been stretched or distorted so that they "fill the printable area of the page", regardless of the actual shape that the terrain would be.  So the actual "shape" of the route is only relative, not absolute in any sense.

For another thing, the background topo maps for Tasmania already show the track in many places.  It was a bit unsettling to see that the route within the book was way too general and inaccurate in a lot of places.  For example, there was one area where the aerial photo shows that the route is along a zig-zagged switchbacked road which is criss-crossed with other zig-zagging criss-crossing roads.  In this web of connections, the book simply shows a line cutting straight across in a totally impossible manner. Checking that against the aerial photo and  it's apparent that you would have to fork first one way, pass a couple of roads, and then take another specific next fork back the other way.  Out of perhaps 8 possible road entrances in this small area, only one specific combination of turns would lead to the right road, and unintuitively, you would have to double back in order to line up with the correct trail.  Not covered in the route book directions or shown on the map.  I would have to hope there are a lot of blazes?

Anyhow, thank goodness for Topofusion!  It's a really helpful sanity check on the guidebook at this point...

[bdstorer]

Hey Mate, currently in Tassie until early February(wife is having a baby). Have been riding on alot of the firetrails and forestry roads in Southern Tasmania.. See: http://www.bottlesandchains.com/?p=2070 for more. I'm based in Margate (south of Hobart) and would be keen to join you for a day ride on some of the southern sections from Ouse/New Norfolk down. Flick me an email if ya keen to meet up for a ride eh: benjamarn@hotmail.com

Benny

[lukey]

Hey Mate, currently in Tassie until early February(wife is having a baby).
 Flick me an email if ya keen to meet up for a ride

Hey Benny, I'm sending an email.  Would be great to connect.  (Congrats on the kid! What bike will s/he ride?)

[bdstorer]

Wife is due any day now so no bike riding for her and hence the reason I can only do day missions. Rode a section of the Trail near Judbury on my CX bike last weekend.. 14kms of steep uphill but well worth it, desecended a section of singletrack called the 'Bracken Ridge Fire Trail'. Pure awesomeness.

Cool shoot me an email and we'll go for a ride.

No worries.

Benny