Day 2 – St Helens Loop – Perfect day of Road and Gravel Riding!

Day 2 in Tassie What a day! This is what we call hybrid riding — some of the best twisty roads in Australia coupled with great dirt riding and wonderful sight-seeing! Our residence, The French House in St Helens is off the A3 Tasman Hwy — just where it starts as a great twisty road. So we hit the twisties for 40-odd K and turned off on Mount Paris Dam Rd — visiting the amazing defunct Dam. The old dam wall was actually cut, creating holes so the dam could be drained! Then we headed for the ‘Locals Secret’ — the Greys Hill Lookout Cabin, an amazing little cabin at the top of a fantastic, steep gravelly climb, which offered a lookout, looking over Branxholm — possibly the highlight of the day! Then we went back to Derby for morning tea before heading back on the A3 to Scottsdale to ride one of Tassy’s best stretches — the Sideling, and we stopped at the Sideling lookout. After that short break, we cut across to the Upper Blessington on Camden Rd, to ride the popular Ben Lomond’s Jacobs Ladder. Conditions were superb with beautiful blue skies, so this was another highlight of the day. We continued on with the Roses Tier Rd Hill Climb, through Upper Esk, Mathinna and onto the fantastic Mathinna Plains Rd which had great, very steep twisties until it reached the gravel section. Mount Albert Road was more great gravel riding with amazing scenery of Mount Albert and Mount Young. This is a fantastic road which eventually becomes Argonaut Rd — undulating, twisty, a little narrower, and very thrilling. We saw the temperature drop by 10° — it got very cold, 850m with a lot of low lying cloud — we thought it was going to rain. Argonaut Rd was a great way to finish the ride back at St Helens, returning to the French House — we refuelled, showered and relaxed with a few drinks celebrating one of the best hybrid day’s riding we had done…. Facebook:   / 18dxtyuwzg   Itchy Boots:    / @itchyboots   GPX File (Actual): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kdk883... GPX File (Planned) Part A: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/qq5ln9... GPX File (Planned) Part B: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/d0c6oi... Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 02:00 Mount Paris Dam Road 06:27 Brewers Road, Branxholm 12:40 The Sideling 15:30 Camden Hill Road 17:05 Ben Lomond 22:15 Roses Tier Road 23:30 Mathinna Plains Road 25:05 Mount Albert Road 26:25 Argonaut Road