vancouver to tasmania

by: Mark Matthews

By KAVU

April 23^rd, 2019

It’s 4pm on a Wednesday, I left home on a Monday afternoon and the 27-hour long journey from Vancouver Island to Tasmania is complete.

As I was flying into the Hobart airport and looking out my plane’s window, the beautiful landscapes had me almost forget how tired I was. The smell of eucalyptus hit me like a wall the second I walked out of the airport. I had traveled from one piece of mountain bike heaven to another. Both Tasmania and Vancouver Island have their similarities, in the sense that they are close in population, provide world-class riding, and are geographically unique in their own regard. That “island vibe” is also very prominent among Tasmanians.

Tasmania has always fascinated me in general. For a Canadian, it’s a mysterious, far-away place, full of unique wild life and separated from the rest of the world. These are all reasons I wanted to visit, but I had also seen great content from Maydena Bike Park lately. The trails there would make any avid mountain biker in the northern hemisphere want to jump on a plane to escape winter. A few of my Canadian friends have been living down in Maydena and helping develop the park, so my interest was sky-high. I was looking for any excuse I could to experience the place.

Before going to Maydena, I wanted to explore more of the island first. I was convinced to visit Derby after a handful of suggestions, it wasn’t even on my radar originally, and boy am I ever glad I visited! The riding was incredible!

Not only that, but the riding community blew me away. This former ghost town transformed to mountain bike town is totally amazing. 99% of the population must ride bikes because the amount of trail development that has happened in the last few years is extremely impressive. Much like Tasmania, we are so blessed with amazing natural terrain on Vancouver Island, but we don’t have communities quite like Derby. Our local governments could learn a valuable lesson from the way they do things in Derby. The visit to this little town was eye-opening to see what’s possible with a bit of extra support.

After a memorable few days in Derby, it was time to head south to the place I had been looking forward to for months, Maydena Bike Park. My idea of this place was not even close to the real thing. I knew it was going to be good riding, but the scale of it blew me away. It has over 800m of elevation and 30+ trails open for riding, with a further 65km of trails under development. I couldn’t believe it! This is bigger than most bike parks in Canada. And every single one of the trails is very well-built.