St Helens - Bay of Fires, Cape Portland and more

We spent several days at St Helens, exploring the top east corner of Tasmania.

While it was still raining for most of our journey, it cleared up and we had a few lovely days of sun, albeit windier and cooler than I would have liked.

St Helens is deep in St Georges Bay, one of the deep bays with jutting peninsulars of which Tasmania seems to have so many.  We explored both 'prongs', driving out to the St Helens conservation area on our first afternoon, and visiting Binalong Bay on our second day.

We explored the Bay of Fires, driving up to The Gardens and admiring the many free camp areas that reminded me so much of the old camp sites on the south coast of NSW that I spent so much time in in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I hope it doesn't catch up to the much more restricted camping there now, but anecdotally people from St Helens are leaving their vans there and only visiting on weekends, so I'm sure National Park permit only camping can't be far away.

We were interested to learn that it isn't called Bay of Fires for the amazing orange lichen on the rocks,  but because of all the Indigenous camp fires seen as Bass and Flinders journeyed past at sea.

We spent quite some time wandering about on the rocks - Ben was insistent on getting to the top of the outcrop, so I scrambled up too, leaving Garry to watch from below.

We spent a day heading up to the top corner of Tassie,  stopping at Larapuna (Eddystone Point) to admire the lighthouse and old keepers cottages.

Our goal was Tebrakuna, the Wind Farm visitor centre, which turned out to be more of an education centre about the history of early settlement of the area,  with another tragic tale of the first people and their treatment by the early government.  Too sad.

The wind farm was amazing and we were very impressed by the vane down on ground level - amazingly long and thin.

Ben is in here for size comparison but you might have to zoom!

From here it was easy to see the off shore islands - Little Swan, Clarke Island,  Cape Barren Island and even the peaks of Mt Strezlecki on Flinders Island!

Did I say Cape Barren Island? I  guess that explains all the Cape Barren Geese!  I've never seen so many all together in a field.

We had intended to picnic here, but despite the great information Centre,  there were no picnic tables and it was very windy (well what can you expect in a wind farm?) so we headed down to the beach at Cape Portland for a picnic rug lunch.  Another amazing white sand beach (but the water was oh so cold).

On our way back we stopped to look at Blue Lake, amazing artificially coloured from minerals left from the tin mine.  There are warnings not to swim in it, and it is probably not a good thing, but it was very pretty.

We also explored inland, driving up to St Columba falls, stopping at the Pyengana cheese factory for a delicious lunch.

Bicheno - in the rain

After the 'heat-wave' cometh the rain... (again).

We only had a few days in Bicheno, as we were conscious of having a lot to see still and not much time remaining, and we had spent several days in Bicheno the last time we were in Tassie.  Last time we hadn't made it to Wineglass Bay and it was high on my hit list this time.  I was still coughing and the weather looked rather like we'd be doing a 2hr walk up a hill in the rain,  so we decided to see Wineglass Bay from the water.

The cruise around the Freycinet Peninsular was very enjoyable, with views of seldom visited beaches, rugged cliffs, a keyhole cave and the now obligatory seals.

But I am quietly confident that Wineglass Bay is definitely better in the sunshine, and most probably better from the land. The sun did peep through after lunch.

For those that think Winglass Bay got its name because it resembles a wineglass in shape, guess again.  Apparently it stems from the whaling days, when there were several whaling stations in the bay, and the water filled with the colour of claret. Not such a pretty mental image.

After the cruise we drove out to Cape Tourville to admire the view, and of course, the lighthouse.

We did pick the better day for our cruise, and on the next day we roamed about, exploring lovely beaches and trying to imagine them in the sunshine.

The blowhole was impressive. 

Tasman Peninsular, Port Arthur

I really love Port Arthur. This might seem to be a surprising view of what Garry calls 'a place of dread', but it is very beautiful. 

The caravan park, up on the hill above the water is spacious and very easy with drive through ensuite sites, with heaps of room.  We also had great weather, during the 'heat wave' so I was happy with two days of 25 degrees.

We spent five days on the peninsular - and used our 2 day ticket to the Port Arthur Historic Site very fully. I was still coughing so we took the first day gently, just wandering about the site and going on the cruise to the Isle of the Dead and Point Puer tours.  Point Puer is the site of first boys' prison and it was amazing to think of 800 boys learning trades, and smoking and gambling on the quiet point.

The second Port Arthur day was very busy as we traipsed about everywhere completing Ben's kids' activity sheet, and learning a lot in the process. 

That night we went on the fabulous ghost tour, which was Ben's first experience of wandering around ruins in the dark with an expert guide telling very creepy ghost stories.  The lights in the church tower kept going on and off randomly, which the guide assured us was not being done by the guides and that a figure was often seen in the upper window, where there is no floor.  Hmmm. Naturally we all kept watching for the lights to go out, but no figure was sighted.  It was a great tour and very well done.

We also went to the Coal Mines - another convict punishment site, apparently more brutal than Port Arthur.  This one is free to wander around,  and eerily deserted.

The dog-line across Eaglehawk Neck is also worth visiting, with a very old, convict built building open for people to wander through and a statue of one of the dogs at his station.

The natural beauty of the peninsular should not be forgotten.  We visited Remarkable Cave, the Tasman Arch, Devils Kitchen and the blow hole (which wasn't blowing). 

Devil's Kitchen

Tasman Arch

Remarkable Cave

Near Remarkable Cave