Bay of Fires Walk, Tasmania

Another trip, another crazy walk.

We were picked up early on Saturday morning from our hotel in Launceston and transferred to the rendezvous point at Quamby where we packed our kit bags and met our fellow walkers and guides. Ours was a portered walk so we transferred our clothes and other stuff into a bag to be carried for us to camp, while we packed a day pack containing extra layers, raincoat, water and the all important lunch. Sheer luxury.

We drove out to Mount William National Park to start our walk watching the weather carefully. October in Tasmania was always going to be risky. We started out in fine weather but soon the sky filled in and the rain started. Just when we were all resigned to get soggy, the clouds parted, hallelujah, and we started in bright sunshine. We emerged from a small car park onto a small creek and a few paces later onto a pristine white beach on the North Eastern Tasmanian coast.

The walking was easy going, flat along the beach with a little scrabbling over some boulders. Beautiful, beautiful scenery, the sea gently sweeping in to the beach dotted occasionally with seashells of brilliant kaleidoscope colours. Sea birds busily working the shoreline with the bush providing a tranquil green border and haven for wallabies and forrester Kangaroos.

We ended our 1^st day at a semi permanent camp where our guides prepared a hot meal washed down with some excellent Tasmanian Pinot Nior.

We awoke to another sunny day albeit a little sleepy after a night of wind and rain kept us awake. We continued south to Eddystone Point Lighthouse, the most easterly point of Tasmania.

We were in a group of 8 walkers with 2 guides. The other six were one group from Sydney who were old friends getting together for a long weekend, so we were the outsiders, but made very welcome all the same. The 6 decided to plough on after a short lunch to make the lodge in good time to start partying, while we decided to stay a while and visit the old lighthouse that still warns shipping today. Hard to believe, but there are some people in the world even more desperate than us to reach the bar for refreshment. The lighthouse, built in the 1890s and manned until the mid nineteen nineties, is a sandstone structure standing 35 metres tall on the peninsula. Its closed but we peeped through the key hole (I wonder who lives in a place like this?) and glimpsed an impressive wrought iron circular staircase. The light used to be visible from 35 kilometers but caused some difficulty for local birdlife apparently causing them to crash into the surrounding area. With all ships now using GPS as the primary navigation guide, the light has been dimmed to help the birds and this appears to have solved the problem.

Back down at the beach we collected our bags and prepared for the walk into camp. The weather was really fine and quite warm so we were taking layers off and slapping on the sunscreen. But this is Tasmania, and 5 minutes later a strong headwind hit us. We quickly emptied our daypacks and put on all our layers as the rain and then hail started. The next 3km down the beach took a little while leaning 45 degrees into the wind, but great fun anyway. The approach to the lodge is gained via some scrabbling over orange boulders that capture millions of bi-valve shells as they are washed up, and finally up through some scrub for 500 metres.

The lodge is a wonderful place, all bright pinewood, a long rectangular structure containing 10 rooms and two shower / toilet blocks. There’s a long communal area where the kitchen and dining area flow into a comfortable lounge where soft sofas are arranged around an enormous log fire. The North wall is covered in glass flooding the area with light and providing a window on the bush where wallabies with joeys are regularly seen nibbling the vegetation. There is a deck at each end with deck chairs looking out towards the sea and up and down the coast. After a hot shower we joined the others for drinks and dinner.

We had quite an evening. The other guests were clearly hell bent on partying. The music was cranked up, the wine flowed and before long we had a catwalk competition and dodgy dancing. Mags even pulled out the old Abba Shovel dance.

Next day the others decided on a quiet day at the lodge which left me and Mags as the only takers for the days walking and kayaking. We were transferred upstream on the Anson river after a short 30 minute walk through the bush. Judy was waiting for us with our 2 man kayak. Mags took the front berth leaving me to steer in the back. The river runs a channel through a steep gorge that is covered with gum trees providing a sheltered and tranquil area. We set off at a leisurely pace immediately passing a lone blue heron. We drifted calmly downstream admiring the wildlife and scenery and emerged at the mouth of Anson bay an hour or so later, past a squadron of Pelicans. There’s no sheltering hills here and the wind was whipping up white horses. This was our bail out point. Nikki, our guide, asked us if we wanted to cross the bay or be picked up here. Of course, we decided to plough on. The wind was fortunately behind us so we raced across the bay practically surfing the waves laughing all the way. We paddled for show as the wind would have propelled us across on its own. We saw what appeared to be two men walking on water near the end of the bay but turned out to be fishermen collecting pipi shells in very shallow water.

We lunched at a pretty clearing in the bush still buzzing from our kayak and walked back to the lodge along a long beach of white sand passing some rolling sand dunes (‘orance!)

Great Aussie Road Trip

The famous five assembled in Waterfall to begin their epic journey.

Mrs. White - Thelma, aka Big T

Mr. White - Judge John

Ms. Orange - Kazza

Mrs. Pink - Mags

Mr. Pink - Gazza

We headed out of Sydney, across the Great Dividing Range in our Toyota Kluger, a vehicle somewhere in between a large car and a small truck. First stop Leura in the Blue Mountains and to the Bake house on Wentworth for the first, and the best, of many Aussie meat pies. The weather was kind, clear and sunny if a little fresh. The cherry trees were in full bloom marking a riot of pink down the middle of the main street. We stopped, as everyone does, at Echo Point, where there was a magnificent, endless view of the valley, the three sisters proudly pointing to the blue sky tinged with a eucalyptus haze from the countless trees carpeting the valley.

We were heading to Newbridge, a dot of a place near Bathurst, carefully booked hours in advance by Kazza via the tourist information office. We roared into ‘town’ and found the hotel standing proudly as the only business in town. The place has been acquired by a young couple who are renovating it. We were the first guests as they had just opened the accommodation and I mean just. They were hoovering the hallway and painting the ceiling as we arrived. We had three rooms and shared the one bathroom that was basic but functional. We had a few drinks in the bar, where a small gathering of locals had made a special appearance to check out the strange tourists. John danced the night away with the owners’ 3 year old girl, Poppy. There were plenty of polite enquiries of “Why Newbridge?” and some puzzled looks.

Day 2 and we zoomed off to Griffith, a much larger country town that is a centre for fruit growing and host to some massive vineyards where a lot of the grapes for quaffable Aussie wine are grown. We drove to a nearby lookout where the huge valley floor below was covered with fruit trees and vines. We walked around some rocks and scrub to the former cave dwellings of a ‘famous’ hermit, an Italian immigrant, Valerio Ricetti who lived there from the late 1920s to 1952.

Griffith’s other major feature was a world war II Royal Naval fighter plane which is perched prominently high above a roundabout at the entrance to the main street. Why it is there is not clear. We managed a quick trip to a vineyard or a tasting where a helpful lady asked us “Why Griffith?”

We trundled on towards pretty Echuca, a town built around the transport of goods to Melbourne along the mighty Murray River using steam ships. At one time, it was the third largest port in Australia behind Melbourne and Sydney. We obligingly booked a cruise along one of these preserved ships, the Pevensey, a 100 year old wooden vessel housing an impressive Victorian steam engine at its centre that still looked brand new, although the ship itself looked barely capable of staying afloat. We spent a couple of pleasant hours steaming up and down the river passing numerous ‘house boats’ that are popular as holiday homes. They look exactly like mobile homes on land, expect with an outboard motor on the back, like a floating breeze block.

Onwards from Echuca to Beechworth, a very pretty Victorian town built on the mining boom, and now enjoying a healthy tourist trade, bolstered by the story of the infamous bush ranger Ned Kelly. Kazza, Thelma and John strolled around the museum and court house while we joined a walking tour of the town guided by a Ned lookalike. We also had a quick peak at the gaol, an impressive sand stone structure that once housed Kelly and was in use until 2005. It’s now open to tourists. We stayed in a beautiful ‘Swiss’ cottage where the log fire kept the chill away, and I barbequed sausages and lamb chops in the rain under the carport.

Final stop Ballarat, another mining town, although much larger with some impressive buildings in the centre of town. Not much more to report as we spent much of our time there in the Irish pub drinking wine and being raucous. Next day Mags and I departed for Melbourne, leaving John, Kazza and Big T heading into Sovereign Hill, a tourist attraction reliving the mining era, and then onwards to the great ocean road. Not heard from them since….?

We were guided wonderfully through the country by Serena, a stern but reassuring voice I’d downloaded into the GPS. We had only one navigation blip when she suddenly instructed me to take a right down a minor road as we approached Lockhart, although our current route appeared to take us straight into town. What the hell? It might be interesting. So we soon found ourselves turning into a dirt track. We were in a 4WD so thought we’d plough on. The steady rain that we’d driven through all day suddenly became a lot harder and the wheels started to sink into the red earth. Soon, the car was sliding about and I was having to turn right to go left a la Doc Hudson. Our slippery progress was finally halted when we encountered an abandoned car across the track. Mags and John jumped out to lighten the load (Not thinking straight there as they’re the lightest) and to direct the 3-point turn. Mags positioned herself behind to ensure that I didn’t reverse into the ditch. I went hard down on the accelerator, spinning the wheels like a dragster for traction and managing to turn us around. I looked in the rear view mirror to see Mags spitting out mud. Unfortunately, she caught up before we could escape.