After exploring the Bay of Fires area in the morning including the lichen covered rock
formations and beaches of The Gardens we headed south to Bingalong Bay.
.
We poked along the east coast whch was quite windy making it a bit of a challenge to keep the high topped van from veering all over the road ultimately ending up in the quaint vacation /resort town of Bicheno. While en route we did veer inland a bit which essentially means driving up, up, up on more windy roads and down, down, down thereafter on the other side of the mountain on even narrower roads than the ascending strips of pavement.
Trying to find a lay by with nearby toilets was a challenge we we did run across spectacular Dennisen Beach.
After finding a caravan park (with showers) we stocked up a little on groceries and walked the town's very scenic esplanade.
The evening was capped off with an up-close night tour of a
blue fairy penguin rookery as they wandered out of the sea just after dusk and settled into
their burrows for the evening.It was quite fascinating - did you know that there are no black and white "tuxedoed" penguins - that came from Walt Disney. They are all blue and white. These little guys weighing at just over 1 kilo are the smallest of all the penguins. Flash photograghy wasn't allowed at the rookery but these pics were provided by the tour.
After
picking up our camper van we drove, with some trepidation initially, the
extremely narrow, hilly and windy roads covered with a lot of dead wildlife east toward the Bay of Fires just outside St.
Helen's on the Northeast coast of Tasmania. Along the way we stopped for a "campervan" lunch and checked out a few look outs.
In the middle of nowhere we accidently we found intricately
carved memorials made from trees of local soldiers killed in the World War I from the
Ringarooma area.
A little further along and with the help of a local who saw we were woefully confused we popped into the Pyengana Cheese farm for some
delightful local cheese. Couldn't resist weighing ourselves on a huge scale - hopefully the number is not discernable in the pictures.
At the Bay of Fires we camped in
a small free site along the shoreline of Jeaneret beach and walked along it
several times during our brief stay. After supper we were eventually lulled to sleep with the crashing of the waves and the
laughing of the kookaburras in the nearby trees. The next morning we arose, had breakfast on the beach, went for a walk up the beach again and then broke camp and headed out.
We drove to The Gardens for a quick hike on the rocky coastline and, after encountering an echinda ambling across the road, we headed south down the east coast.
