TT Report, Day 15: So Many Cox

I have been doing better on meeting my daily mileage goals. In fact, I often exceed them, though I’ve only done that once on purpose. The ride to Arthurs Lake was such a breeze that I pressed on. All the other times, the extra kilometers come from the most persistent problem of the ride: navigation.

It’s clear that my GPS compooter will never give me accurate directions. I’ve given up on that entirely. I’ve even had to give up on it as a compass. (At one unmarked crossroad, it said North was the road to my left no matter which road I took.) However, I did find a way to make it tell me how far I’ve ridden, which it wouldn’t do before. So it is now the bulkiest, most expensive, battery-drainingest odometer on the market, but for an old-timer like me that’s better than GPS.

So I’ve gone back to 17th century technology: odometer, ink, paper.

When Booster and I were stranded in Hobart, I spent an afternoon at the library mapping the middle part of the TT, which has a bunch of confusing detours for flood season (namely, right now). I was advised not to attempt fording the Mersey River, and had to find a different way across. Which I did. Now, armed with my handy-dandy jury-rigged odometer, I found my handwritten turn-by-turn instructions were accurate to within 50 meters. That’s as accurate as the compooter is capable of. They were perfect!

Until they weren’t. But it’s not their fault. The road didn’t comply with the map.

See, Cox’s Road was 3 km too short. I was supposed to turn off of it at the 30.1 km mark, but at 27.1 km it dead-ends at the Lobster River. Should I cross? To do so would be to abandon my trusty handwritten instructions. Worse, I knew the trail on the far side would lead me straight to the Mersey River. The whole goal was to find the bridge across the Lobster and avoid being at the mercy of the Mersey.

This is how you exceed your daily mileage goals.

It turns out Cox’s Road has friends. There’s Upper Cox’s Road, Cox’s 1, Cox’s 1/1, Cox’s 1/2, Cox’s 1/2/3, and Cox’s 1/2/4. I have no idea what these designations mean. They’re not addresses; this is forestry and single-track country. Nary a house to be found. Are they different roads, or different sections of one Cox’s Road? Would one of them run the entire 30.1 km I’d expected?

Call me a Cox sucker, but I followed every single one of them, hoping one would match my holy handwritten directions. No such luck. About 20 km later I had explored every corner of the mountain and had run out of daylight. So for the second time in two weeks I camped on the edge of a forestry road.

In the morning I had no choice but to forward the Lobster River and then see what was so scary about the Mersey. The single-track leading down to it was the hairiest I’ve seen yet. Photos never do these things justice, but here’s one anyway. (Stick Figure Me and Booster added for scale.) Just know this is as tall as a clock tower, steep as hell, slick as hell, with a hairpin turn at the bottom if you don’t want to hit those stick figures (or the fallen trees behind them).

As luck would have it, after walking down the death drop I met my first Tassie Trail travelers, two bikers who had crossed the Mersey only moments earlier. Somehow they survived, so I figured I could too. Their secret? The water is only hip deep.

Maybe I was right to waste half the day exploring the mountain yesterday, when it wasn’t raining. Let the floodwaters run their course, you know. Give the Mersey a dry day to get merciful again. Or, just maybe, I’d only been advised against the crossing because it’s so obvious I’m the Worst Bikepacker in Australia.