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| Trees & Twisties Canyon carving, touge, tarmac rally... whatever you call it, this is the place to discuss it. |
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#1
04-18-2014, 01:14 PM
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Tit does (Targa) Tassie
So...as an Aussie who's into motorsport, it's natural to be totally into the Targa Tasmania. Why? Imagine some of the best driving roads in the world being assaulted for a week every year by some amazing machinery...
http://www.targa.com.au/tc/ This race was perhaps made famous by Eric Bana in recent years in this movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmkpsQmsRpI Anyway....the wife and I decided that we had to finally get down to Tasmania. I plotted a route that would cover as many of the 2013 Targa stages as possible, while still enjoying everything Tasmania could offer (in one week, at least)... I write this as we sit in Hobart. Now. I've driven the Stelvio Pass. I've driven the Nurburgring. I've driven most of the South Island of New Zealand. And I have to say, I've never been anywhere where you can string so many kilometres of amazing road together. Imagine literally being able to drive for hours on amazing twisty roads. With no other traffic. We originally planned to take the 964, but a leak at the oil cooler took the wind out of those sails. But we have, to be serious, a perfect option in the garage right next to the Porsche....a 2009 JCW. She's perfectly setup for it...KW V1's, camber plates, thicker RSB, control arms, recaro seats. It's got decent tires and an aggressive alignment setup (for the street). Anyway....here goes... Day 1 - Canberra to Melbourne & The "Spirit of Tasmania" We started with a seven hour boring highway drive to Melbourne. We hopped on the Spirit of Tasmania for the ten hour ride...lucky we had a cabin and could sleep... On the way to Melbourne...at Holbrook  It was once a Greek cruise-ship....  
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 Tit + Bec = '09 AB JCW // '90 964 C2 // '15 R60 CCS // Australia 
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#2
04-18-2014, 01:23 PM
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Day 2 - Devonport Ship terminal to Cradle Mountain
This day only covered one stage - Hellyer Gorge. This one is famous for a few crashes. Not a single car on the gorge except us. Bloody brilliant! Here's some mates of mine running Hellyer Gorge in the same model JCW last year... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2fh6ijVA0M After Hellyer we lobbed into 'Peppers Cradle Mountain Lodge' for two nights. Spent the middle day bush-walking. Covered about 16km of walking out to the mountain. Lovely...  Saw some cool wild animals...(and some in a local reserve) Wombat:  Tassie devil:  
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Tit + Bec = '09 AB JCW // '90 964 C2 // '15 R60 CCS // Australia
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#3
04-18-2014, 01:34 PM
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Day Three - Back on the Road - The longest day
This was the big one. We planned to do as many of the west coast stages as possible and then dash back across to Launceston. A fairly epic drive - dawn to dusk.  For those of you looking at the stage maps We took in these stages... https://goo.gl/maps/ta9U2 Stages: Mt Black Plimsol Rosebury Strahan Queenstown - Gormanston Cethana Mt Roland Mole Creek  HOLY MOLY. Not a word of a lie - there would be several hundred km of twist after turn after crest after twist and so on. An no other traffic. Perfect driving surface. Perfect cambers. Beautiful scenery. It was absolutely amazing... Here's a few of the stages we did are covered here in Day 4 and 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvIEctBEeFE Here's a guy from the local porsche forum running the Queenstown-Gormanston leg. Queenstown looks like this from copper mining...but all of the roads are a lot like this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMG1TnBfw8 Sorry..didn't take many photos on this day...so much amazing driving!!
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Tit + Bec = '09 AB JCW // '90 964 C2 // '15 R60 CCS // Australia
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#4
04-18-2014, 01:53 PM
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Day Four - East Coast and more amazing stages
This day we left from Launceston due East, covering several more stages. This was a great day and we finished the day off with the famous 'Sideling' and 'Elephant Pass'. Perhaps my driving needs some attention because I made the wife vomit near the end....oops... We covered these stages: https://goo.gl/maps/ZzeCW The Sideling Legerwood Moorina Welborough Pyengana Elephant Pass  Here's some videos of the stage: (From 2:25 you can see what 'The Sideling' is like) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p97U__c_P5I (My MINI mates again on the Sideling) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exgOFu-AzuA   We also visited Freycinet and saw Wineglass Bay after a short bush-walk. Bec got close to some of the locals:  
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Tit + Bec = '09 AB JCW // '90 964 C2 // '15 R60 CCS // Australia
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#5
04-18-2014, 02:11 PM
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Day Five - Port Arthur
Not as much Targa driving for day five. Though we did visit somewhere amazing. Port Arthur. This place is seared into the Australian pysche for all the wrong reasons. It was one of the first penal colonies (in this massive Penal Colony of Australia) and has a rich history of hard-labour and misery. It was basically a timber mill run by convicts. http://www.portarthur.org.au/ But more recently, it was the site of one of the biggest mass murders in the world. On 28 April 1996, Martin Bryan Killed 35 people and injured an additional 23 in a shooting rampage that ended in a siege the following day. The Wikipedia entry makes for chilling reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Ar...28Australia%29 This event resulted in the banning of fully-automatic weapons in Australia... One thing I didn't mention was that on the boat over from Melbourne, there were a few hot-rods. Turns out, there's a large Hot-Rod gathering here in Tassie and a few of them were at Port Arthur today. When we arrived at our hotel tonight, there were quite a few of them at a local pub. We spoke to a few and are heading out to the hot-rod show tomorrow!      This is right next to our hotel... 
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Tit + Bec = '09 AB JCW // '90 964 C2 // '15 R60 CCS // Australia
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#6
04-20-2014, 07:41 PM
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very frigging cool man!! totally jealous!! would loooove to drive that!
on the hot rod note, saw a show about the American Hot Rod guys down under! very big and very dedicated to the cause! looks like it was a blast, thanks for sharing!
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"Always check your six"  
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#8
04-23-2014, 04:35 PM
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Quote:
Quote:
Here's some of the street-rod turn-out in Hobart:         V12 with a blower!  Next to our hotel: 
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Tit + Bec = '09 AB JCW // '90 964 C2 // '15 R60 CCS // Australia
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#9
04-23-2014, 04:55 PM
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man, Rat Rod with a blown V12! very nice and that COE was unreal! the friggin chrome lol! know some people that would give their left nut for that one! thanks again man!
__________________
"Always check your six"
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#12
04-26-2014, 11:39 PM
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Yeah. I really liked that truck.
These guys made me realise that the car modding/engineering scene I've been around is child's play compared to what they get up to. There's some serious skills and expertise in these cars! Quote:
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Tit + Bec = '09 AB JCW // '90 964 C2 // '15 R60 CCS // Australia
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and nice write up.
