Tas - Bay of Fires

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Up at 7.30 and left by 8am today. We drove from Swansea to St Helens to the Bay of Fires. We stopped at the Information Center, a lovely little lady welcomed us and showed us where all the free campsites were and told us that there were free showers in the main car park area near the harbour - brilliant! And they were hot showers - even better!
We drove up to Grant Lagoon Camping area, there was nothing there apart from the lagoon and lot’s of mosquitoes! This was really camping in the bush! We set the tent as quickly as possible as within 5 mins Chris got bitten by a spider and his finger went numb and i got 2 mosquito bites and one of them made my arm swell up! MAD - not sure if this camping thing was such a good idea after all!!!
We then drove to The Gardens, this is as far as you can drive along the coast as you reach the conservation area. We parked the car then walked onto the Bay of Fires. The views, beaches and waters here are stunning, the various blues against the red stained rocks.... On the way back we got chatting to a couple of guys emptying crates of crayfish into esqui boxes. We asked if we could take some photos as they were so big and a beautiful colour red/orange. They were from Launceston, In Tas not Cornwall, and were here in their holiday home. They caught all of the crayfish before Christmas and kept them in wooden crates attached to their boats, then they could help themselves to a fresh crayfish whenever they had guests around - brilliant idea! The one chap was so proud of this one crayfish ( he is holding it in the photo ) as it was the second one like this that he caught in his life. It was a New South Wales Green Crayfish, they very rarely get to Tasmania’s waters! He was really interested about the UK - really nice guy!
Then we went to Binalong Bay ( i love the name of this place! ) and had a coffee on the beach. As we were walking down the sandy path, with grasses either side of us, a man on the beach said to us to hurry up but walk slowly, that is when we saw it... a very long black snake right next to where we came onto the beach! A little bird was chirping away so we think it was after the nest. We watched it until it went into the grasses, then everyone on the beach just went back to enjoying the sun and the sea! Mad how they just carried on as normal! It was our first snake we’d seen!
Afetr all the excitement we went for a walk along the coast. We walked to Skeleton Point ( don’t ask why it’s called that) Dora Point and beyond - not quite sure where! The beaches and coves along here were so beautiful!
Went back to St Helens for a hot shower as we were black from the walk - amazing how dirty you can get from walking! We also cooked our dinner here in the free BBQ area, they have them everywhere in Oz !And we were trying to stay away from the spiders as much as possible!
When we got back to the tent we got to see an old man who was staying in a camper van walk his cat - literally!!!!

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Photos

The man from Launceston
Holding his precious New South Wales Green crayfish