I've just come back from a three week holiday in Tasmania. Most of the time we stayed in wonderful Hobart. It's the most hilly city I've ever seen which makes cycling there a real challenge.
The more time I spent in Tasmania I realised I wouldn't enjoy cycling on the roads there. The roads are all pretty much the same grade whether it's a highway or a byway and you can cycle everywhere seemingly, even on dual-carriage ways :-o Tasmanians seem to drive fairly fast and carelessly judging by the horrific smash-up reports each day during our holiday in the Mercury Tasmanias main Journal.
I'd be very pleased if someone can tell otherwise and report to me on the cyclability of Tassie's roads.

Being on holiday as a family isn't very condusive to going of on long cyles on you own anway so I pretty much gave up on the idea.

Tasmania has much more to offer in hillwalking, cross country skiing, sailing... .
Simon a freind of our's from Tassie (who is enjoying the rejunenation for which Tassie is renowned) took me on a walk in the Snowy Ranges. The most stiking thing about the walk apart form the diversity of the vegetation was the isolation from civilisation.

Mt. Wellington

Awe
The most prominent landmark around Hobart is Mount Wellington 1270 m. It creates an impresive view from the city with its shear cliff faces made of dolerite columns or "organ pipes" as they're called there.

Drawn:
My instant thought when I saw was I'll have go up there on a bike. I'd looked into renting a road bike for $45 a day.
Anyway I decided I'd head up Mt. Wellington on a borrowed mountainbike. Because I was staying in Lenah valley I wanted to start from one of the tracks at the end of the lenah valley rd.

False assumptions:
It took a few attempts to realise the tracks around the mountain were all the same uncyclable (is that a word...it is now). I just couldn't understand the signs with bikes on the saying "moderate" or "difficult" where which ever way you went you were confronted by a near 45° slope.

Physics:
The problem here is not the gear ratio it's just the physics of it all. The angle of your body on the bike is all wrong so that there's not enough weight on the back wheel and the gravel and sand are so dry there's no traction anyway. A freind Simon said casually as I told him this that the trails are only meant for downhill mountainbiking...doh!

The grind:
So I pushed the bike up the trails for the most part which in some places was also almost impossible. I enjoyed the spectacular lookout at the Spinx Cliffs and shortly after cut onto the roud leading up the summit. I met a nice gentleman from NSW on a birdy (the german folding bike) and we chatted for the last few km of the climb. He pointed out that Mt. Wellington is probably the only mountain of that height in Oz that you cycle to the top of. Maybe that's true. Certainly even in Germany there aren't too many summits of that height you can cycle to, Brocken being one that springs to mind.

The view:
Unfortunately the summit lay above the clouds that day which marred the view but gave an added sense of height with Hobart peeking through the holes in the cloud cover. I didn't take a camera with me.... shame.
The ride back down is fun and easy with only four or five hairpin bends as I remember. The bike was on had flat tyres which slowed me down considerably even though I hung my bottom over the back tyre and got down as low as I could. With drive back through the city and the small but very steep climb back to where I was staying, I was truly shattered but very happy...chappeau to anyone who does that on a regular basis, I know I would if I lived there :-)