Targa Tasmania 2008 Day 6 - The Pounding on the Paradise Mountain

And so Day 6 Dawns - the day we'd been preparing for 8 long months

Up when everyone in HK was still at the pub. At Reveille The Nav had a brainwave - although it took long, fatigued seconds to formulate rather than the usual milli-seconds needed - Nav prodded the Skipper to shower first, cunningly achieving this objective, and enabling another 22 minutes of sleep, waking only to yell a reminder the Skipper that there's a bad drought in Tasmania

Later, The Nav finished his shower and commenced kitting out, only to see a 'Mary Celeste' moment, with no sign of Skipper, wet linen all over the floor, a cup of half eaten muesli with low fat no calcium milk sitting by the TV, and hotel door ajar. Looking at his watch with his half cold cup of coffee, half eaten cup of muesli with low fat no calcium milk being slowly consumed without relish, he realises......."Sh*t ! TAXI !?" Dropping his coffee, muesli, linen, and newspaper, Nav streaks down to reception and today's ‘Rendezvous with Racers'!’

Arriving at the Velodrome Skipper delegated Nav to “Get the coffees.....double expresso, bit of extra hot water. Got it ? Go!” The Nav whips up to the Velodrome's indoor coffee stall, gives his order, gets a blank stare, and the delightful elderly gentleman behind the counter replies "This is Rotary mate !" Heading back to M3 chastened, cups in hand, Nav and Skipper then tucked into their roasted Launceston dish-water, looked directly at each other, dumped coffees in bin out of sight of the Rotarians, and grabbed two more real coffees from the barista coffee van down below in the centre of the cycle track

Out the door, line up and then we were off again, 10th in our Packet, we headed off for a full day of "Ah 50 kmph Speed Limit Zone Skip." "That's a school there Skip." "Wallaby 10 metres left - on road shoulder. Nice swerve" "Ah 50 kmph Speed Limit here Skip." "Large 50 metre tall, half a metre wide gum trees 2 feet from my left-cheek Skip." "More road kill Skip. Ours I think." "Skip, can we close the sun-roof as we drive up to the starting marshalls as we do look a bit gay." "Ah, yes agreed. 161 kmph top speed on your speed-clock Skip"

Three hard driven, nerve-racking, teeth-rattling closed stage runs later, through small North Tasmania town's like Entally and Deloraine - where you can buy sacks of horse manure for $2! (Skipper's Ed Note : Tell 'em they're dreaming!) - We stopped at the town of Sheffield and were handed our packed lunch consisting of 2 carefully wrapped sandwiches, a piece of cake, an apple, and a juice drink, with napkin, in a Lunchbox container. Tough Stuff this Targa

After lunch we charged on again, Nav commenting that thus far the only piece of Tasmanian Geography that we had noticed was a 1,300 metre high 5 mile long 'Mount Roland', covered by the massive 'Paradise Forest' (Skipper's Ed Note : We kid you not !) with cliffs higher than the Niagara Falls on the far side as we departed the area. A geographic presence so big you can see it from Mars. Apart from that - nothing. Rivers? "No." Estuaries ? "Nope." Forests ? "A couple of trees maybe." Bass Strait ? "Where's that again?" Large Churches? "Thought they were all muslims in Tassie ?"

And what flora and fauna in Taswegia. At one stage a 3 inch prehistoric bumble bee (Skipper's Ed Note : We kid you not!) came through the driver's side front window of the pocket rocket, Skipper going absolutely spastic with worry, and calm trusty Nav using his Bible-sized Navigator's Manual to ease the big little bee back out the window. At the same time The Nav managing the complex control system in the centre of M3 to raise the Skipper's car window, and thus avoid any chance of the determined little bee ramping himself up to 120 kmph to catch us up in anger!

And so it continued, hour after hour, stage after stage, open and closed roads, until we were exhausted, Skipper and Nav finally finished the Beaconsfield Town closed run, waving at our fan, missing the fence by inches at the hard left at the bottom of the last hill, and then a quiet comfort stop in the local sports hall, shattered glass all around us as those trusty Aussie glaziers tried for the 7th time to fix the window 18 feet above us. And then it was back to the Meschersmitt, identities switched with Nav as Skipper, and Skipper as Nav, for the drive home to the Velodrome; with The Nav seeking to understand the intricacies of the M3 in motion, and the Skipper himself calling out speeds, turns, distances, road kill targets, and double caution hotspots on the highway back to Launceston

Disappointingly, nary a word was heard from Skipper, as he looked at page one of the Targa navigation manual route back to Launceston for 4 seconds, filed it, sorted his seat position, checked the paperwork all over the floor, adjusted his sun-glasses, reviewed fuel usage, and fretted about the whereabouts of our next BP fuel station, as these are the only place in Taswegia that you can buy 98 Hi-Octane NASA fuel

Back to Launceston Town, all the chores previously mentioned completed, out for dinner with a mob from our Packet, two groups of 3 legged men hopping by us through the downtown streets, and that was it for Day 6

Some further reflections on the life in this north Taswegia city -

A) Essences of M***juana detected by Skipper and The Nav in the lift and hallways of their 4 ½ star hotel, indicating one of two things

Either

The maintenance crews also staying in the hotel will be immensely enjoying their work on the main Targa Super cars - between the actual Targa stages - but taking hours to complete just an oil change, enjoying the colour of the high performance lubricant oil in the bright Tasmanian sunshine, as they pour the lubricant into, and then empty it from, their Team Owners Car engine again, and again, and again, and again

Or

We could expect tyres and wheel nuts flying off next day - during the racing - after completion of full maintenance check-ups by the same laid back crews

B) Notice seen after hours at one of Launceston's Hotels - "Notice - Public Bar : Our public bar is presently not open because it is closed. Manager"

Tomorrow, another cracker, with several closed stages - including one 8 Km Monster called Moorina - up through north eastern Tasmania. Skipper was buzzing that night with excitement, The Nav quietly set up his shrine to Buddha in farthest corner of the hotel room

Until then, drive hard !

The Nav