Sunday, February 9, 2025

Our day began in Scamander, Tasmania. Andi and Aden each took another shower this morning, and Aden spent some time calling his friend from back home. We ate breakfast together, and then left the holiday park around 9:30am.

On our way out of town, Andi pulled into Eureka Farms to buy some fresh produce. We spent the next 40 minutes talking American politics and travel with the older couple who owns the farm. The man was born in the USA, but has lived in Australia since he was a 12. The pair had strong political opinions, and kept asking Andi, “But what do you think?” We weren’t about to get into a political debate with him.

The conversation ended with a purchase of the season’s first apples, plums, and Nashi pears. Nashi are an Asian pear variety that must be popular in Australia. We’ve seen several signs advertising their seasonal arrival.

On the road again, we drove north to St. Helens, the largest town in the northeastern part of Tasmania. It was desolate on a Sunday morning. We visited the IGA grocery store to buy a meat and veggie for dinner. “Do you ever feel like all we do is drive to different grocery stores?” I asked Andi. It seems like we’re always there.

We did our shopping, then Andi walked to the bakery to get a coffee while I unloaded the shopping bags in the RV. When he returned, he said the bakery was closed, but he did find a bigger, nicer IGA grocery store around the corner from the one we’d just been to. He bought a loaf of bread, some protein bars, and trail mix.

From St. Helens, we drove further north 20 minutes to the Bay of Fires. This stretch of beaches on the northeastern coast of Tasmania are renowned for their white sand, turquoise-blue waters, and orange lichen-covered rocks. There’s loads of free camping and off-road trails.

We pulled into Binalong Bay and drove along Swimcart Beach to see if we could find a camping spot for the night. Almost every spot was taken except for one primo spot right on the water. “Should we take it?” Andi asked. It was only 11:00am, so we were committing ourselves to spending a whole day at the beach.

Soon enough, we parked our RV in place and set up our Starlink satellite internet. It still amazes us that we can be in a remote part of the world and still be connected.

I got to work making lunch for us — deli meat, cheese, crackers, bread, olives, fruit, veggies, and hummus.

After lunch, we all relaxed in the RV. Tory and Aden played the Nintendo Switch together, and Andi took a nap. I uploaded some photos and researched things to do in the area.

We were camped alongside a gorgeous beach, but the weather wasn’t exactly warm. It was cool and cloudy outside with an air temperature of 60 degrees. The wind was vicious, making the air feel even colder.

Around 2:00pm, Andi prodded us all to go outside for a walk on the beach. The wind nearly blew us right over, but the sugar white sand and the aquamarine color of the sea — wow! We’d never seen anything like it.

At the end of the beach were a series of giant granite boulders firmly cemented into the sand. They reminded me of the rock people that come alive in the movie, Frozen. Orange lichen growing on the rocks illuminated their shape against the ocean backdrop. Sand between the rocks was as white as snow.

Interestingly, the name Bay of Fires doesn’t refer to the bright orange lichen on the rocks which give the “fire” colors, but actually Aboriginal fires that were spotted by Captain Tobias Furneaux when he sailed past the area in 1773.

Andi, Tory, Aden, and I began crawling over the rocks. We had a blast for the next two hours doing so. We all helped each other scale the big rocks, dance between them from one foot to the other, and explore what was hidden inside the cracks.

We thought there might be penguins perched on top of the white rock at the end, so we climbed closer to see. Little penguins are found in Australia, but these birds turned out to be a group of razorbills.

We took the long way back to our camper, attempting to follow what we thought was a beach trail but actually joined up the highway. Hey, at least we got our steps in!

We don’t have a grill in our rental RV, so Andi made chicken stir fry on the stovetop. It tasted really good, actually. When we’re traveling, Andi shares in some of the meal preparation which is such a nice break for me. Sounds of the ocean waves crashing onto shore lulled us to sleep tonight.

Tomorrow, we’ll make a turn and head west into northern Tasmania.