After pausing for dinner at St Helen’s we stayed overnight at a little place on the east coast called Beaumaris which the locals translate from French as ‘Beautiful Beaches’.
Our target for our third day was the Bay of Fires. We spent most of the next day exploring there and I have to say I am hard pressed to name anywhere I’ve seen in the world that is more beautiful.
Anyway I’ll begin at the beginning. We were only able to see roughly the southern third of the bay. We had time to see more but alas the insurance on our hire car specifically excluded unsealed roads and the northern section is only accessible along dirt roads.
This piccie shows a little cove that was our first glimpse of the Bay of Fires.
I’d heard before we went that it was beautiful and this first glimpse certainly didn’t disappoint.As you can see it was a glorious sunny day and the light and the colours have to be seen to be believed.
Crystal clear air and water, Tassie is one of the least polluted environments in the world. It is just so far from most of the World’s population and manufacturing centres.
The gorgeous white sand and granite boulders painted with orange lichen complete the picture.I shot these boats at The Gardens which was the northernmost point of our day.
Notice they are tied at both stem and stern to overhead cables to prevent them being driven into the rocks in windy weather.These boulders were taken from a point just near the boats.
We went in a meandering fashion toward the south. This little cove is also at The Gardens
And these boulders are taken from the same vantage.
South of the Gardens Deb walked along this sandy path to have a look at
Taylor’s Beach.
Out at the point was this rock formation.Deb thought it looked like a mother and children, I can see that but I can also see something else.
Deb says that is because I 'am a boy'.A little father south at Seaton Cove the beach was positively crowded.
I think this was the most people we saw on any beach at the Bay of Fires. Bear in mind this is high summer, Tasmania’s peak tourist season and summer holidays for schools.Like I said agony.
Our last view of the Bay of Fires.
Why the Bay of Fires? The first European Explorer to see this place was Tobias Furneaux, who was the commander of one of the ships during James Cook’s second voyage around the world. Furneaux saw the bay at night, all along the coast were the twinkling lights of Aboriginal camp-fires. There were so many that he decided the area must be densely populated and did not go ashore.If you keep your eyes open as you walk you will see traces left by the original inhabitants. Usually in the form of an archaeologists delight, trash heaps called middens like this one eroding out of a bank behind the dunes.
The remains of somebody’s seafood banquet hundreds of years ago.Then finally as the day began to wane we stopped for a picnic meal. And as we ate I snapped this photo of a little local. He perched there for an unusually long time, these Superb Blue Wrens usually never stop.
I would almost swear he was admiring the view.
