Smithton is the main town of Tasmania's far northwest, a farming and timber service town at the mouth of the Duck River, in a corner of the island known as Circular Head. With about four thousand people it is the last place of any size before the wild country west and south, and the land around it is gently rolling dairy and beef pasture, very green and often very wet. The air that blows in here has crossed the Southern Ocean with nothing in its way, and the Cape Grim station, not far off, measures it as some of the cleanest on the planet.
The district has an old, tough history. Timber cutters and farmers settled here in the nineteenth century, working for the Van Diemen's Land Company, which held enormous grants of land in the northwest. Nearby Stanley, with its flat-topped volcanic plug called The Nut, is a fine little fishing village with historic buildings, and it is worth a detour for a lunch of fresh seafood and a look at the view from the top. Cape Grim beef and local cheese turn up on the menus, and it is hard to go wrong.
Riders come to Smithton as the gateway to the Tarkine, the great wild rainforest region that spreads south and west. The Western Explorer is not a casual road: much of it is unsealed gravel, rutted and patchy, with corrugations, dust, and a lot of water when it rains. If you are on a big road bike with road tyres, think hard before you commit, and check the current state of the road before setting off. Keep the speed down, give yourself time, and carry a puncture kit.
Services are the big question. Fill up here in Smithton, because fuel is thin on the ground once you head into the Tarkine, and the next sure supply is far to the south. Buy food and water as well, and tell someone where you are going. The reward is a landscape of button-grass plains, tannin-stained rivers and dense myrtle forest, with the smell of wet earth and the chance of seeing a wedge-tailed eagle or a Tasmanian devil's tracks. Weather can turn cold and wet at any time of year, so pack rain gear and be ready for it.