Day 0 — Tasmania Again? This Time, It’s Tango!
We’ve already toured Tasmania several times, including twice on a motorcycle. Once clockwise, once counterclockwise. So why are Noune and I going back again?
This time, the answer is simple: tango!
From 14 to 17 January 2027, Hobart is hosting Summer Tango, four days of milongas, music, friends and dancing. For us, that’s a perfectly good reason to visit Tasmania again.
Of course, we could just fly down, spend four days dancing and fly home. But where’s the adventure in that?
Instead, we’re taking the motorcycle.
The plan
On 12 January, we’ll ride from Melbourne to Geelong and board the overnight ferry Spirit of Tasmania, arriving in Devonport the following morning.
From there, we’ll head towards the east coast, with a lunch stop at Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm Café. This is a special request from Noune, and I suspect the raspberries may be almost as important as the tango!
Then comes Elephant Pass, one of Tasmania’s wonderfully winding roads, before spending our first night in Bicheno.
The following day, we’ll continue south along the coast towards Hobart, hopefully with enough time to ride up Mount Wellington if the weather cooperates. The weather cooperation is important – last time we went up there the visibility was less than a meter due to the thickest fog I had ever seen, and I’m telling you – riding a motorbike in that sort of a fog is not much fun. Not to mention that we got to the top for nothing, as we couldn’t enjoy the view that’s its whole purpose!
And then it’s time for tango.
We’ll be based in Hobart for several days, catching up with friends and enjoying the festival. But we’re not planning to spend all our daylight hours indoors. Mount Field National Park, Russell Falls and the Huon Valley are all on our list.
Once the festival finishes, we’ll head north through the Central Highlands, via Bothwell and the Great Lake, spend a night in Deloraine and eventually return to Devonport for the ferry home.
A different kind of motorcycle trip
Unlike our previous Tasmanian adventures, we’re not trying to ride around the entire island.
We’ve seen much of Tasmania already, and this time the festival is the main event. The motorcycle touring is a very welcome bonus.
That means shorter riding days, more time for sightseeing and, hopefully, arriving at each destination with enough energy left to enjoy ourselves.
We’re also skipping western Tasmania on this occasion. Its spectacular roads and scenery deserve more time than this trip allows.
The packing challenge
There’s just one (utterly familiar) complication.
Motorcycle touring already requires some careful luggage planning, especially when there are two of us on one bike.
Now we need to fit in our usual riding gear, everyday clothes and enough outfits for four days of tango. Not to mention dancing shoes.
Our Suzuki GSX-S1000GT Panorama (or GT+ as they call it in Europe) may be a sports tourer, but its luggage capacity isn’t quite designed for a tango festival!
We’ll work something out. We always do.
Counting down
The ferry is still a little way off, the route is taking shape, and there are a few details left to organise.
But we’re already looking forward to Tasmania’s winding roads, beautiful scenery, good food, familiar faces and plenty of tango embraces.
Tasmania, here we come. Again!