Trip 55, part 10 – Bay of Fires and Gladstone area, the “North East”

Leaving the Great Lake and Central Plateau, we headed east, back down to the coast to a free camp at Cosy Corner South, in the Bay of Fires, located in the North East of Tassie.

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We hit the east coast at about 2pm in the afternoon but the clouds were so heavy and the sea mist/fog so thick, it was so dark it felt like it was about 5pm.

We easily managed to find a spare campsite at Cosy Corner, camping just behind the dunes which afforded us a buffer from the wind and the sound of the heavy surf pounding onto the beach. After setting up, we did a quick walk down to the beach before chilling for the evening in the van, as the rain set in for the night.

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Monday morning (May the 4th be with you) dawned bright and sunny again, albeit with large puddles of water on the road, a legacy of last night’s rain. We started the day very lazily, with a late breakfast whilst streaming the Miami F1 race replay from last night. Then we headed up the coastal road to explore the other camps, eventually finding ourselves at The Gardens which was obviously the social media spot to be in the Bay of Fires, as evidenced by the throngs of tourists all taking selfies of themselves against the backdrop of the orange lichen coloured boulders.

We then followed a bush track through the woodlands, back to the main road down to St Helens. This trip being more exciting than we’d anticipated when a small Wombat ran out from the side of the road, causing me to lock up the brakes to try and avoid it. Luckily I was only doing about 40kms at the time, however, we were pretty sure I’d hit it as the last glimpse we saw of it, was it dropping below the visible height of the bonnet, just in front of the passenger front tyre. After managing to stop, I got out to inspect what I thought would be a grizzly scene, only to discover to my absolute relief, that the little bugger must have run completely under the car, out the other side and into the bush. There was no evidence of squished Wombat under the car and I checked the sides of the road for any injured animals and that was all clear, also. Lucky little bugger it was, and it would have broken our hearts to have hit and injured, or killed, a Wombat.

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The rain forecast for today, being Tuesday 5th May, seems to have been delayed by 24hrs and is now due tomorrow. So, with some fine weather to enjoy, we decided to do a loop drive out to Mathinna and then Evercreech Falls, before checking out Pyengana.

Following a large truck from St Helens, we slowly made our way down the coast and then back up through St Marys Pass, and on to Fingal. Being mid-morning, we stopped in Fingal at the Flying Saucer coffee truck for a lovely cuppa and quick chat, before heading out to the falls.

Having completed some pre-drive googling the day before, we learnt some interesting, but ultimately very sad tales of the town of Mathinna.

• The first being, the township of Mathinna was established back in the 1890s when gold was found in the area and, for a while, Mathinna was Tasmania’s third largest town with a population of over 5000. Sadly though, the population today sits at under 150 and after driving through the town it’s easy to see its slow, but seemingly inevitable decline.
• The second and worse tale is the history of the town’s name, Mathinna. The town was named after a young, six-year old Aboriginal girl who, in 1841, was essentially abducted from her family to live with the Lady Jane Franklin, wife of the then Governor of Van Diemen’s Land (aka Tasmania), Sir John Franklin. Whilst the forced abduction and adoption of Mathinna by the Franklin’s is bad enough, the story gets worse as she was then left as a ward of the state in 1843 when John Franklin was recalled back to England. Mathinna remained in state care until she was found dead, supposedly drowned in a puddle in 1851, aged just 17. You can read more about her terrible story on Wikipedia here.

Leaving Mathinna township, we drove up through the bush, pulling up in a wet and secluded parking area. It was then a 20minute walk down to the falls, along a well marked, but somewhat overgrown path, through the temperate and very damp rainforest/bush. The Mathinna falls were quite nice, although I did manage to slip whilst trying to get a good photo position and ended up dunking one foot, sneaker and sock, completely in the river – and then spent the rest of the day with a cold, wet, squelchy foot.. With photos taken, Jules walked and I squelched back to the car, jumped in and started heading to the next falls. We hadn’t driven far, however, when I noticed a leech, about an inch long, creeping along my hand. Stopping quickly I jumped out and scraped it off my hand, only to discover another 4 or 5 little leeches on my shoes and trousers. Jules discovered a similar number on her, so understandably we spent the next 15mins doing a funky chicken dance in the middle of the bush track, inspecting each other and scraping off the leeches we’d accumulated.

Seemingly de-leeched, we continued on to Evercreech Falls and parked up. Another, older couple were just finishing up from their walk to the falls and advised us to “watch out for leeches”. We thanked them for the advice and reciprocated it, by advising them of our experience at Mathinna Falls. So, tucking our trousers into our socks, we tramped off down the Evercreech Falls Path which was even more overgrown and damp than the Mathinna track. Inevitably, we started spotting leeches on our shoes again, and after a few minutes Jules called it and retreated back to the safety of the car after she found and scraped off another 8 or so leeches. I valiantly continued on, completing the path and getting some pics along the way. It was a nice little walk and falls, but I kept hearing the Jaws movie soundtrack version of “Leeches attack” (whatever that sounds like) in my head. And upon arriving back at the car, I find Jules dabbing her leg with a well blooded tissue, being the results of a leech that she’d missed and who’d obviously spent the last 30mins or so feasting and fattening up on her leg. I then re-completed the de-leech routine, again removing another 6 or so leeches from my shoes and trousers, but luckily none had made it through my “trousers tucked in socks” barrier, so I didn’t get bitten or sucked on. Sucks to be Jules, I thought.

Despite being metaphorically faint from symbolic blood loss, Jules was a trooper and didn’t complain much. Although, she did start googling leech maladies and remedies as soon as we received mobile and internet coverage again.

As is our general modus operandi, we then followed some ‘very’ back tracks, which turned out to be forestry logging roads, up through the forest to Goshen and then through to Pyengana. Our intent being to sample the cheeses at the Pyengana Dairy, before heading to the Tassie famous “Pub in a Paddock” for a beer and early dinner, and to see the pub’s beer-swilling pig. Unfortunately, being a Tuesday in the Tassie off-season, meant the dairy wasn’t open today and the pub had, just a few days earlier, reduced their food service days to Friday and Saturdays only. Bugger. So no cheese or dinner to be had, but we did manage to grab and enjoy a beer at the pub. We also patted the pub pigs, before heading back through St Helens to our camp.

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We opted for a casual day today. A late get up and breakfast, followed by a slow drive and inspection of the various bays, most with their own campgrounds, between Cosy Corner South, where we’re staying, down through to St Helens.

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Something weird happened last night.. We were sitting, snug in our van and it was about 9:30pm. In fact, I’d just gone to bed to read – when we heard a car. The car sounds indicated that it seemed to have stopped outside our van, and on peeking through the curtains, it was pulled up right behind the van. It then pulled out again, and now reversed back in, taking many attempts and multiple engine stalls, to reverse up through a very narrow gap between our van and the tree behind us, to reach the camping area behind us. It was so close to the van, that they had to drive up and over our floor matting (grass) outside the van. They then unpacked a swag and went to bed.

Luckily for us, they weren’t loud or obnoxious, but they obviously thought the best camping space for their swag was up behind our van.. Come morning time, as we were enjoying our brekky, they awoke, packed up their swag and once again, navigated the very narrow gap behind our van to leave. Not a word spoken and luckily no issues, but strange.

Anyways, after our brekky, we packed up and headed into St Helens for supplies of water tank refills, diesel and some shopping. Then it was off, heading North to Gladstone. En route we spotted a number of Wombats out during the day, and the last one we spotted clearly had signs of mange, which we’ve since reported and the local Wombat carer is heading out to assess and hopefully treat it.

As expected, Gladstone is a very small, one street town and after introducing ourselves to the lovely Ashley, the publican for the day, and daughter of the pub owner, we camped out back and chilled for a bit. As happens when one is parked behind a drinking establishment, the call of the wild grabs you, and mid arvo we wandered into the pub for what we planned would be a sneaky beer, possibly two, before dinner. 4hours later, we’re now best mates with Ash, Uncle Tim, Peter and many other locals, and we’ve consumed multiple beers and a couple of whisky chasers, whilst sitting in front of the wood fire and chatting. All in all, it was a great afternoon and we really enjoyed chatting to the locals about their town, our travels and life in general. We did manage to disengage ourselves early enough to prepare our planned dinner, which we ate whilst watching Dockers beat the Hawks.

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Friday 8th May – a very happy 26th birthday to our beautiful daughter, Georgia – she’s our favourite daughter today – and a very respectful happy 100th birthday to the amazing Sir David Attenborough.

Today’s plan was to loop down south, taking in the Little Blue Lake, the Legerwood chainsaw carved trees, Mt Paris Dam Wall, St Columbia Falls and the Pyengana Dairy Company, a round trip of about 180km.

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Yesterday’s loop was south, today’s north. Saturday, 9th May and our first stop was a quick look at the Ansons River Causeway, which we’d driven over on the way into Gladstone, but we didn’t stop at the time as we were towing the van.

Then, we drove through Ansons Bay, then out to Eddystone Point and the lighthouse, up to Deep Creek Camp, out to Musselroe Bay and then out to Little Musselroe Bay Beach, which was stunning with the full sun, light winds and no swell. We opted to have our lunch on the beach, soaking in the peaceful surrounds. From Little Musselroe Bay Beach you look out over the ocean to Cape Barren Island on the horizon, which was supported by the many pairs of Cape Barren Geese we passed in the paddocks on the drive in.

After lunch, we dropped into the Tebrakunna Visitor Centre which is a joint Wind Farm and Aboriginal facility. On our drive back to Gladstone we swung out to Petal Point Campground for a quick looksee, but as this side of the headland was a little more exposed to the wind, it was as scenic as the bays in and around Musselroe Bay.

It was then back to the van in Gladstone, where Jules chilled and I snuck back into the pub for a sneaky afternoon pint and chat with the very friendly locals we’ve got to know over the last couple of days.

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That about wraps up this post. Tomorrow we’re heading more west to explore the East Tamar River region and towns, before finishing our Tassie jaunt with a couple of days camping on the West side of the Tamar River – but that’ll all be in the next blog post.