Wildside Tasmania Day 0

Had a great night's rest at the Cradle Mountain Chateau and woke to a cool, misty rain morning.  We dawdled around until the cafe near the park entrance opened for breakfast (and the weather broke) then loaded up on the hearty breakfast which saved us a good $10 off the hotel options.

It felt nice waking early and having the bikes together, once the sun came out we rode into the park to Dove Lake, in the shadow of Cradle Mountain.  It's ridiculously beautiful here - no wonder this is a world heritage area.  Tasmania seems very beautiful and photogenic as a whole, it's an impressive landscape, and without many people, feels very natural (the 2h drive from Launceston to here didn't involve a single traffic light for example).

We returned toward the Chateau the kept going the direction the of the race start - eventually finding the start and doing a little pre-ride.  I'm so excited to race.

On the way back, heads down into the wind, we stopped to see an echidna ambling across the highway.  It didn't seem to care much about us, and walked towards my tires.  I didn't feel like testing my stans sealing ability so we shooed it off the road as best we could and continued home.  I love seeing these unique little animals.

Race check in was organized and speedy, I'm on half a sugar high now as the gallery also has sampling of Tasmanian honey.  I love unique flavours of honey just as much as unique mustards.  If I wasn't battling the domestic airline pay by weight rip off  system I'd load up on a bunch of flavours, but not sure I need to be doing that right now.

Chilled out most of the afternoon, listened to the racer meeting which was full of corny Australian humor - man these guys seem to come at it all from a slightly different angle.

The highlight of the night was my 8:30 to 10:15 feeding tour of Tasmanian Devils, watched a video, petted a devil, watched them eat for an hour, saw a spotted quoll.  It was all quite amazing, and unbelievable to think they may be kaput in 20 years on the still current exponential decline rate.  They're actually really calm when they don't have meat in front of them, but man they're tough little buggers other than that.

Rode home in the dark past a bus with spotlights giving people a wildlife tour, after I passed them I was doing better anyway with night adjusted eyes and the silence of a bike, saw the wallabies taking over nibbling on everything.