At the Bay of Fires

Speechless. How can something be so beautiful? The colours are real, the photos unedited…

The Bay of Fires is located at the North-East coast of Tasmania. It is famous for its red-orange granite boulders and the free camping along the beaches (similar to Recherche Bay). With the Tasmanian school holidays still going, we decided to have a look at these free camps first and booked into a caravan park at St Helens (packed).

It was a very nice caravan park with clean and modern amenities. We could do our laundry and enjoy a bit of civilisation. And as it turned out, the free camps were not that attractive. Crammed with caravans, motorhomes, and trailers; only a few sites with ocean views; and a bit of a cowboy vibe – first come, first served. We even witnessed an instance of road rage with caravans cutting each other off to get to a vacant site. Reviews on WikiCamps reported endless circling of prospective campers all day long. Very unpleasant. We had experienced this on our first day at the Franklin Foreshore – the clouds of dust and the stares of the passengers.

Existence blessed us with shimmering summer mornings. We could even go swimming. In the afternoons the weather reminded us that we were still in Tasmania: Temperatures dropped, the wind turned into gales, and sudden showers had us reach for our rain jackets.