Tasmania, Australia

January, 2000

About 4 weeks / About 1500 km

My first bike tour! I can’t remember how I learned about touring, or why I decided to give it a go, but I’m sure glad I did. At the age of 20, I spent my junior year of college studying abroad at the University of Wollongong. The world did not burn on Y2K, and so the long summer break gave me plenty of time to discover bike touring and see quite a bit of amazing Australia. With a budget-level Avanti hard-tail mountain bike and some borrowed panniers, I flew to Hobart and set out on my first wobbly miles. I can still remember the stress of learning how to handle the bike at the stop lights leaving town. I made it about 30 kms that first day, and arrived exhausted… but I guess things got better after that 🙂

Some highlights of the trip were Wineglass Bay, playing some solo golf in Stanley in some fine Tassie weather, the beautiful west coast, taking a boat cruise on the Gordon River, and seeing a baby wombat inside a ranger station in one of the national parks. I created the photos below with captions many years ago.