On the Rocks, St Helens
17th June, St Helens, Tasmania, Australia
We had never intended to stay very long at Bicheno - we assumed that it would be the kind of place that we could zip through quite quickly, tick off all the to-dos from the local promo literature and head on. We were both glad that we had lingered for a while and caught the penguins coming out of the Tasman sea last night. And to think that just a little way up the road we would have been charged $16 each for the privilege.
Another benefit of staying overnight was that we got to do the scenic drive between Bicheno and St Helens (further north) in glorious sunshine, stopping off briefly on the way at 4-Mile Creek for another bout of beach/sun/waves-crashing-in type photos.
St Helens is a fair bit bigger than Bicheno (which was proudly announcing that it would soon be hosting an ATM in the town), but was still not up there with the likes of Launceston and Hobart, ie places that had an Internet Café (hey, that's an important one for us, and a good indicator of whether the place is a 2-horse town or something heading towards modern, upwardly-mobile hotbed of high culture). It is very well placed, though, for scenic trips up to the Bay of Fires area. Which we did, of course ...
Ethel ploughed her way up the road, then off on to the unsealed roads that would lead us up to various picnic spots and start points for the coastal walks in the area. We left her under the shade of the eucalyptus trees then started our walk at a place called Grant Point heading south towards Dora Point, signposted as a 55-minute hike. It didn't take us long to deviate off the shaded coastal path and down on to the vividly coloured rocks down below. They screamed out for their photo to be taken, perhaps with a fool from England clambering over them, running and jumping about like he was practising his parkour (not sure what 'parkour' is? Go Google!). That fool was me, of course. If there's a large rock to be climbed, I'll give it a go, never mind the consequences if I slip!
Rocks at Grant Point, nr St Helens.
Ian running along the rocks, Bay of Fires.
This happened a few times - we'd get back on the path, wander along a bit, then deviate again. Admittedly, the rocks were all kind of similar: large grey things, mostly covered with lichens (some of it a very strong brick red) and seagull poop. When we eventually decided that we'd had enough both of the designated path and our various deviations we made for the van. Manda spotted a sign that said Dora Point was 45 minutes away - we'd spent almost an hour zig-zagging over the rocks to cover a distance that took most walkers (sensible ones) a mere 10 minutes!
Next stop, a place just up the (unsealed) road - Binalong Bay. This was described to me as a very pretty spot by the lady from Bicheno's information centre, a place where "you get all that turquoise water", with white sandy beaches and rocks scattered along the coast. This was all true - it had the natural beauty, but the clouds had by this time settled over the land and rain looked imminent; the turquoise waters were looking more of a thrashing grey - we'd got there just a little too late.
We had a late lunch/early dinner in the centre of St Helens and I then made tentative enquiries about whether there was anywhere in the town that I could get Internet access (we had a whole bunch of diary updates waiting to be uploaded, and I hate to get such a backlog). I was surprised to learn that the local computer shop offered wireless access for people just like us. So I take back what I said about St Helens. It's got more than the requisite two horses, this I now know.