Bass Strait

We are at Bridport on the northern coast with the waves from Bass Strait lapping at our doorstep.
We’ve stayed at three camp sites so far and St Helens was the most modern, Bridport is quite basic, open, and sprawling – probably very busy at holiday times. We are parked under a few trees on open grass.
This morning, we got going early, but a lot of vans had left before us. Today we were heading up to the Bay of Fires coast. It is famous for its beaches, red rocks, and a super place to freedom camp with lots of beaches with camp slots on the compacted sand. We decided to stick with the commercial sites.
But first a coffee in St Helens – and it was pretty good too – bought a loaf of sourdough for lunch.
We went past Binalong Bay which looked amazing with yachts in a calm bay and moody morning light. The road to the Bay of Fires peters out at a place called The Gardens and we parked up with the others. We went to a lookout, and then I went from a wander around the little inlets and rocks. Got some good shots.
Went back to St Helens and then on the main road west first to Scottsdale and then Bridport. The drive was quite tough – a lot of windy bends, tight corners, climbing, climbing – through native forests and then down into pastureland. We went through a town called Derby which is the mountain bike capital of Tasmania – and the town was buzzing – bikes and bikers everywhere, and lots of biking businesses. Later we came upon their Rail Trail. Not long past Derby we took a slight detour to Legerwood, which is a one horse town that has carved a tribute to its WW1 soldiers out of old tree trunks. The trees were planted after WW1 for the soldiers that they lost and a little while ago the council said they were rotting and dangerous and wanted to remove them. The locals said they were remembrance trees and convinced the Council to allow the community to chainsaw carve figures etc. Sounds crass, but it was clear to us that the locals did not want the memories of their fallen soldiers forgotten.
We had a coffee at Scottsdale and sat outside in the sun – pretty much the most sun we’d seen all day. And then a short distance to Bridport.
We went to a nearby IGA and got some washing powder – need to get some fresh clothes back in circulation. While Gran was tending the washing she got talking to a guy who was also doing the washing and he and 3 others had sea kayaked – they start at Port Welshpool in Victoria and island hop across Bass Strait to Bridport - took them 2 weeks, a lot depends on the weather. We looked on the internet and it’s a well-known challenge and notoriously dangerous.
Thursday we will travel to and trip around the Tamar Valley and Gran has booked accommodation at Beauty Point on the west side of harbour.Read more