July - Mazda MX-5 Club of Victoria & Tasmania

›Four seasons in one day!chocolate-chip muffins smothered inice-cream and candles – it just happenedto be my 35th birthday, and what betterway to celebrate than cruising around thewindy roads of Tas!I scoffed the ice cream and took themuffins with me so we could hit theroad, heading down the Ridgley highway.I originally planned to take the HellyerGorge road as it’s a Targa Tasmania run,but luckily Ken pulled me up by pointingout (correctly!) that the small criticalsection of road that connects across tothe fun ‘C’ roads behind the coast wasGRAVEL! OH NO! Needless to say, we tookthe other road, which was a nice driveanyway, if a bit straight.From there I took us on a very windyroute via all the curviest ‘C’ roads on themap! There were some fantastic roadsthrough forestry, paddocks, tiny towns ofthree houses. One scary moment we wereracing up a windy hill with an open dropoff to the left, when popping over the top,backlit by clear sky, was a huge tractor! Hewasn’t taking up the entire road but it feltlike it for a few seconds. Bruce behind uswas fixated on our bumper in the hopesof avoiding it, while I was scrabblingaround for the radio – I’d lost it underfoot while taking pics of Bruce behind usout the window. Being first car has somedisadvantages in that no-one can call a“traffic” or “road kill” warning for you!Soon we arrived at the Gunns Plainsvalley, which is a narrow long one witha big river running through it andlots of caves, with a wonderful viewthrough to the mountains. The hill downwas very steep, curvy and narrow, andblowing a gale of course. We stopped atGunns Plains Caves (again only publictoilet for miles!) for coffee, muffins and astretch. The sun was just setting over thehill, and with the wind still blowing a gale– but no rain at least – we didn’t stay forlong. I’d tried to stop at a local winery anda local goat cheese farm, but both wereclosed ... bummer.The road out of the valley that we tookwas VERY curvy (looked great on themap!) and very fun, taking us up throughbush, farms, past the vineyard, and overthe hill back into the sunlight. The next›Bruce & Chezsection between Gunns Plains, Sprent,Paloona to Latrobe and our finish, weremore excellent well looked after ‘C’ roadsthough beautiful country. It was dark bythe time we hit Latrobe, saying a quickgoodbye and then everyone was off tore-fill petrol tanks so they could make ithome!Nearly 400km, and over six hours ofdriving (not including getting to thestart or getting home) and a great dayhad by all on roads not often travelled -since they are so bloody far away fromcivilization! I think I’ll plan a short runnext time though... (“yay!” they all say!) ■›Louise, Cheryl, Ken, Lyn, Carl15