Tassie Taster - Discovering North East Tasmania

When you think of quality mountain biking in the Southern Hemisphere, your first thought might be New Zealand, or perhaps Chile. Maybe you’d think of Australia, but it'd probably be Cairns or Canberra, both put on the map thanks to World Cup races. And unless you’ve been paying attention to the local MTB press, you’d probably not think, "I know, let’s go to North East Tasmania!" and you’d be forgiven for putting North East Tassie at the end of your list. Until recently, there wasn’t much there, but thanks to 6-years of lobbying by local advocates, substantial State and Federal Government funding and the work of professional trail builders, there’s now a treasure trove of riding in this little corner of Australia. Perhaps you've already planned a winter escape south of the Equator. Don't miss out - add three or four days to your antipodean holiday and discover the beautifully built trails, fantastic nature, and uniqueness of North East Tassie.

Bottom of the Dam Busters descent; North East Tasmania has the goods.

History

In 2011 Tourism Tasmania identified North East Tassie as a prime location to develop mountain bike tourism. The main sites for development were Hollybank, Derby, and Blue Tier, all not far from Launceston. Hollybank launched in October 2014, and immediately started gaining social media attention, putting the destination newly on the map for many mainlanders (and also piquing my interest). The trails were built by the Tasmanian trail building company Dirt Art, and the main attraction, Juggernaut, was soon receiving a lot of praise. Meanwhile, MTB hall-of-famer Glen Jacobs and his company World Trail, were breaking ground around the town of Derby. Derby is how I imagine many small towns around Australia look. Its main street is lined with weather-board miners’ cottages, an old pub, a couple of cafes, and not much else. Before mountain biking arrived, the town’s main draw was the Tin Dragon Interpretation Centre, a museum commemorating the tin-mining history of the area, and the story of the dam that burst in 1929, devastating the town and killing 14 people. Until a couple of years ago, economic opportunities were few and far between.

Enjoying the beautiful forest surrounding the town of Derby.

Thankfully, that’s beginning to change. The cafe next to the Tin Centre has been taken over by The Corner Store, a bike-friendly cafe which also provides bike hire and basic spares. Bed and breakfasts are starting up, as well as group accommodation options. Part of the development funding has been used to provide a car park with modern bike wash facilities, toilets and hot showers at the trailhead – an extremely intelligent decision. Right now, the future looks bright for this little town.

The trailhead and shuttle pick-up location in Derby. About 300m away there is a car park with toilets, bike wash and showers.

The two locations slated for development after Hollybank, Derby and Blue Tier, were joined together to form a single riding destination “Blue Derby”, focussed around the town. Trails start right in the middle of town, but the two trail highlights, Atlas and the coming, Blue Tier Descent (due for completion in June 2016), are best accessed by a shuttle service. As of December 2015, there’s about 60km of trails already built. Stage 4 (Blue Tier) currently has three World Trail build crews working on it, and when it’s complete, the area will have over 80km of purpose-built mountain bike trails.

Stage 4 of the Blue Derby development is currently being built and is planned to be finished mid-2016.

The Build-It-And-They-Will-Come Principle

After watching the videos of Juggernaut, and then ogling over the photos of the first two stages of Blue Derby, North East Tassie was firmly inscribed on my must-ride list. My best friend’s wedding back home in Victoria provided the excuse for a long trip to Aussie, and I decided this was to be a little holiday within the holiday, squeezing it in between family and wedding commitments.

We brought our versatile hardtails for the month-long Aussie trip, but anything up to a 160mm enduro machine would suit Blue Derby well.

My boyfriend and I flew from Melbourne to Launceston, which is one of those flights where you start the descent almost as soon as the ascent is over. After picking up the rental car, we headed out via the Tasman Highway, which winds its way through some incredible Tasmanian cold-climate rainforest, before coming out into Scottsdale. Scottsdale is the regional hub, and has supermarkets, a bike shop, pubs and a couple of all important bottle shops. We picked up supplies for the next couple of days, as Derby itself doesn’t have much in the way of mid-week dining options. Although we stayed in Derby, you’d be well-placed in Scottsdale as it’s about half-way between Hollybank and Blue Derby, and the beach town of Bridport is also only 20 minutes drive away.

Blue Derby

After reading about the trails in the area, it was clear that Dam Busters was an absolute must. At around 11km, it's the longest loop in the network, and takes you right out to the top of Cascade Dam, before finishing with a fast descent back to Devil Wolf. I set about studying the trail map and planning a route that would take in more than half of the trails around Derby. I taped the plan to my top tube and stashed a printed map in my backpack, but the trails are very well marked and major junctions have map boards, so this proved unnecessary.

Navigation Blue Derby-style.

From town we headed up on gently meandering trails that gained height metres without ever bringing you into the red zone. The ferns and undergrowth keep the temperature moderate, and the light filters through the tall trees to give you a feeling of really being in the middle of nowhere. The trail itself changes from loose sandy pebbles, to soft dirt, to massive rock slabs, where you can still see the mark of the machines that have carved out the trail.

The top of Flickity Sticks, a must ride trail. It’s close to a road from town, so it could also be ridden as a shuttle option.

Rather than head straight out to Dam Busters, we first added in the Flickity Sticks descent back to the main junction at Devil Wolf. This turned out to be an excellent decision. The descent was fast and furious, with perfectly shaped berms that had us hollering the whole way down. We then retraced our path back up Long Shadows and headed up to the Cascade Dam. This contained the only painful ascent of the whole region - an old fire road, aptly named Heartbreak Hill, that goes straight up, but the effort was more than worth it. Afterwards, we relaxed by the water and had a snack before tackling the final, fern-filled ascent to the lookout at Lakeview Drop.

Heartbreak Hill; tough work in the midday sun.

From Lakeview Drop, it’s practically all downhill back to Derby. I’d read about the new black trail, Black Dragon, an alternative descent at the end of Dam Busters, and was keen to give it a go. Having learnt to ride in the Alps in Switzerland, I figured a “black” trail in Australia would probably be more like a red in the European grading. Thankfully I was wrong, and this trail is both properly black and extremely fun and challenging. It has lots of tricky lines, switchbacks, rock rolls and steep sections. A fantastic addition to the mostly flowy trails of the area. We finished off with the fun Howler and Berms & Ferns trails, before a well-earned coffee and meal at The Corner Store in town. Our first day had given us a taste of the trails in the area and we were excited about what was to come!

Dam Busters has you crossing some lovely little creeks along the way

Concentration face!

Near the Cascade Dam, where the loop uses some pre-existing fire roads to circle the reservoir

Hollybank

Our second day of riding took us to Hollybank, about an hour away from Derby. I’d spoken to Buck at Vertigo MTB to get advice for accessing the Juggernaut trail, but although Vertigo does run shuttles at Hollybank, we were riding mid-week in the shoulder season and there was nothing scheduled. Instead, he gave me instructions on how to get to the trailhead via the shuttle road. The ride up was neither technical nor overly long, but the second half had some steep pitches and we were suitably warmed up when we made it to the top. The shuttle road itself is signposted for mountain bikers so you’d have to work hard to get lost.

Refuelling at the Juggernaut trailhead

We saw quite a few echidnas, a couple of snakes, a Tasmanian Devil and lots and lots of birds during our trip

After a short stop for snacks at the trailhead, we padded up and hit the descent, and what a descent! It is fast, rocky, full of features and opportunities to get some air. I took almost no photos as we were just having too much fun to stop. The first half is an open hillside, covered in the giant rock you see all through the area. Dirt Art have done a great job using the natural terrain to create a proper enduro style descent which gets more interesting the faster you ride. Rather than rent bikes in Australia, we'd decided to bring our “freeride" hardtails with us from Switzerland, so that we could ride when and wherever we wanted during our holiday. Juggernaut was the only trail where I missed my full-suspension bike. While the hardtail didn’t hold me back, my legs ran out of juice much quicker having to negotiate all the bumpy sections at speed.

The gorgeous natural beauty was most certainly a highlight of the trip

The second section of the trailheads into the forest, shielding you from the full sun and becoming smoother underfoot. There are more than enough berms and rollers to keep you happy, and the nature, like everywhere in this corner of Tassie, is stunning. Juggernaut eventually connects to the Tall Timbers trail, which although still flowy, is more ascent than descent back to the car park. The whole loop is about 20km, but if you still have some energy, there’s a pump track and skills park to finish off with.

Riding the Tall Timbers trail back to the Hollybank carpark

Atlas

Ever since I heard about the opening of the Atlas trail at the end of October 2015, I couldn’t wait to ride it. I’d been on the phone to Buck at Vertigo MTB and he managed to fit in a mid-week shuttle for us on our last day in Tassie. Buck doesn’t just provide a shuttle service at Atlas, Blue Tier and Hollybank, he also has a full fleet of Norco Sight 7.1 bikes to rent out for those travelling light. He’ll even switch the brakes over for European and North American visitors!

Buck got us safely up the track to the top of Atlas, on yet another stellar early summer day in Tassie

Anticipation is high

Atlas is a stand-out trail, 10km of pure enjoyment. It’s not an exclusively downhill trail, as the middle section is a bit more pedally. The forest is deep and dark and mossy, with soft dirt and old trees. Like everything we rode around Blue Derby, the nature itself was a huge part of the experience - we even saw a Tasmanian Devil shoot off into the undergrowth at one point. The trail is expertly built, with multiple line choices, jump features and excellent use of the natural terrain.

Even though it’s a choose-your-own adventure destination, you can’t get lost following the well marked trails

The dense rainforest had us riding through a constant strobe effect

After the deep rainforest in the middle, the last descent of Atlas opens up a little more and picks up speed. It eventually joins with the Dam Busters trail, just before the Lakeview Drop, so we were able to ride the Dam Busters descent, which we’d skipped in favour of Black Dragon on the first day. This descent is not to be missed - a fast, flowy, adrenaline filled trail that is one of the many highlights of the area.

Soft dirt, lovely trails

Back in Derby we met Buck at The Corner Store for a Dam Busters beer, produced by the local Little Rivers brewery, a bite to eat and a debrief of the fantastic ride we’d just had. We didn’t manage to ride all the trails in the area during the three days we had, and with Blue Tier opening up in mid-2016, next time we’ll need even longer. Not surprising then, that as we drove up to Devonport to take the overnight ferry back to the mainland, we were already reliving the best parts of the short trip, and planning our return.

North East Tasmania makes for a fantastic mountain bike holiday. We’ll be back.

Plan Your Own Trip

Official Blue Derby Site
Blue Derby have a fantastic website with trail maps, webcams and information about trail openings and maintenance. There’s also links to accommodation in the area.

Hollybank MTB Information
Details of the trails at Hollybank.

Vertigo MTB Shuttles
Buck is running regular shuttles in the area, with many mid-week options in the summer.

The Corner Store
Derby cafe providing great coffee, food and beer to happy mountain bikers.

Lilydale Larder
A great cafe near Hollybank to get your post ride coffee and cake, and also has wine tastings from local wineries.

Little Rivers Brewery
Little Rivers Brewery is located in Scottsdale and has a lovely selection of beers, including the special edition Dam Busters, named after the Blue Derby trail.

Weldborough Hotel
The famous Weldborough hotel, providing accommodation, pub meals and a huge selection of Tasmanian craft brews and ciders. It’s situated not far from the top of the Atlas trail, and will be the lunch-stop for the new Blue Tier-Atlas all-day shuttle service.

Branxholm Imperial Hotel
In Branxholm, about 7km from Derby. A classic Aussie pub with good food and vibe.