Day 52 / 2015 - Bicheno to St Helens

Leaving Bicheno we headed further up the coast to St Helens where we hope to spend a couple of days camping at the Bay of Fires.

We followed the coastal highway all the way to the town of St Helens. The town is a moderate size one including a fishing harbour and a reasonable size shopping precinct. St Helens has a free camp site which is more of a rest area just west of the town centre by about 2kms. It was pretty level and again with a fresh drinking water tap and a dump point. We though we would spend a night here then drive into the Bay of Fires tomorrow. We unhitched the van and drove into to town to check out the Tourist bureau and purchase groceries.

We found out the camping grounds in the Bay of Fires was only 10 km from where we were so decided we would drive out there and checkout some suitable sites while we didn't have the van. It's turned out to be a good strategy when we got there the place was packed even little bays on the sides of tracks had vans in them. We didn't really relish the idea of trying to fight for a spot or wait in the carpark until someone drove out (that was already full anyway) so decided not to bother to try to camp there. We looked at a couple of other camp grounds suitable for vans but the others near the water were also full. The bay gets it name from the brilliant orange coloured oxide covering the rocks which were littered all over the bay. We didn't feel as though we missed out as we had seen very similar formations in other less busy bays further south.

Next day we took a drive to Pyengana as small hamlet just off the A3 that takes you to Scottsdale. First stop was the Pyengana Dairy Company selling specialised cheeses which we just had to stop for a tasting and maybe purchase. There were 5 cheeses available for tasting we ended up buying a double creamed Brie. Just down the road was the pub in the paddock.  This is one of Tasmania's oldest pub and sits all on its own in the middle of a farmers paddock. In residence is a beer swilling pig but on the day we were there he was just lying in his stall perhaps nursing a hangover from the night before. Tradition dictates you buy a beer but being the responsible drivers we are we opted for a cuppa coffee instead besides it was 10am. A 3 year old girl who is the daughter the owner of the pub just had to find out who we were and where we came from. From there she then told us about her favorite toys and showed us her drawings. The owners themselves were very friendly also showing an interest from where we came from and gave us some local information of the surrounding area.

Next we drove to St Columbia Falls. Its about a 20 minute drive from the pub ariving you park at the top in a small carpark. You then walk about 600 metres through dense rain forrest along a well formed zig zag track crossing streams spaned by wooden bridges untill you arrive at the lookout platform at the base of the falls. The waterfall is mutli tiered and is approx 90 metres high. We had packed a picnic lunch and planned to sit at one of the tables but the weather was a bit moist so opted to return to the car for our sandwiches. On the drive back to St Helens we called into the Shop in the Bush. This shop mainly contains Antiques and Books all for sale took us about half an hour to walk around and have a look. A lot of the books were old and we did recognise a lot from our time it was interesting to read what our ideas were back 30 to 40 years ago kind of like a timecapsule of our ideas back in the 70's and 80's.