16 St Helen's, TAS - Day 1


Since we missed the visit to the Cape Tourville Lighthouse the last two days, we decided to visit it this morning. It was a short walk around the light house and we had an opportunity to take a group picture. We saw more interesting light houses before, I must say this one is just so so.

We drove to St. Helen's today and planned for a BBQ dinner. We stopped at the Sir Loin Breir Butchery for some steak, lamb chops, chicken wings, and a lobster. This place was recommended by the chef at the lodge last night (and also selected by our master trip planner, Carol). It was not a long drive, but the road was twisty at parts and there was not much to see.

We stopped at Mount Elephant Pancakes for a snack/lunch. Both the savory and sweet pancakes (more like a crepe) were good. This cafe is in the middle of nowhere and is currently up for sale, though they say they will continue to run the place. We arrived at Pelican Point Sanctuary for the next two nights. Though the name is Pelican Point, there were no pelicans on the premise. There was a pasture with about 20 cows. The cows were black with a patch of white fur around the middle, covering about 1/3 of their body. It was the first time we saw cows like this. We found out the famous Lease 65 Oyster Farm was closed due to the heavy rainfall in the last few weeks. The rainfall resulted in flooding and thus the salinity of the water in the area.  As a result, they need to let the oysters re-charge.

Binalong Beach
Guess who's treasure hunting in the tidal pool?
In between the meals, we went to check out the Bay of Fires; so named because of the red lichens on the rocks. There were 4 beaches in a row and a lot of campers. First we stopped at the Binalong Beach, then we moved on to the Cozy Beach (North). It was low tide and there were a few tidal pools among the rocks.  They were quite beautiful – crystal clear water, colorful vegetation, and a few small fish. There were small crabs on the rocks, but they all scrambled away when I walked by.

This was a perfect photo spot and the family members all took a lot of good pictures. I saw an ibis on the rock looking for food, but David was somewhere else taking pictures.









The barbecue dinner was fantastic! All the meat were so tasty and tender.  And we also had the lobster (crayfish) and abalone.

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