25/11/18 The morning was sunny when we left Derby, heading east to the coast to St Helens and Bay of Fires. But climbing the winding Tasman (cough) Highway up into the hills, conditions changed to rain and fog. The narrow road (it’s not right to call it a highway) choked down even more in many places. We came across one tight switchback after another near Weldborough Pass and progress was down to just 20kph. By the time we started to descend, we’d only travelled 40kms with a further 26kms to go to St Helens on the coast. But I’d had enough, feeling a bit over-stressed and under-intoxicated, and we turned off to Pyengana to pull in to the recreation ground.
Pyengana isn’t really a town; it may have been once but now was mostly a cluster of farms; more a district. The recreation ground was a great little camp, a big green grassy area with large trees, toilets and hot shower facilities. 100 metres back down the road was the Pyengana Dairy with its Farm Gate Café where we had lunch and picked up some of their cheddar cheese – Tasmania’s most famous according to them – and some other condiments for a van platter. About the same distance up the road the other way was the well-known watering hole, the Pub in the Paddock, where we had a couple of drinks. Cold beer at the rustic bar, roaring fireplace and convivial publican made for a good time and we ended up chatting with a group of fellow travellers, also down from Queensland. Is anyone over 60 left up there?
The weather continued to be miserable – cold, very wet and gusty. We had no internet or phone reception at Pyengana and when I’d last checked at Derby, the forecast was for rain for the next 7 days. We decided to sit it out for a while before heading on to the coast and, fingers crossed, the glorious sunshine of the Bay of Fires. Much as we dislike the noise of those things, the generator was fired up to charge the batteries, but it does come in handy if you want to stay on in nice places like this in prolonged poor weather.
By the third day of rain, we were both coming down with cabin fever from being cooped up inside the van. There’s only so much reading you can do before going nuts. We decided to bust out, left the van at camp and drove to St Helens for a lookaround, did some food shopping, checked out the camping spots along Bay of Fires (found a likely spot), and had a beaut lunch of Tassie mussels at the Lichen Restaurant overlooking the sweep of snow-white sand of Binalong Bay, with its brilliant turquoise waters and red-stained shoreline boulders. Our day at the coast had been encouragingly warm and sunny, and we considered bringing the van down from Pyengana but word from the locals was that more rain was on the way for the next few days; and sure enough, by mid-afternoon it was raining and continued through the night back home in the van. Apparently, Tassie’s had a very dry winter and spring this year; it’s certainly making up for it now.
We took a drive north on gravel roads through mountain forests to the small coastal village of Anson Bay and nearby Policemans Point, and into Mount William National Park to the old lighthouse station on Eddystone Point. We checked out the beach and stormy seas for about two minutes before retreating back to the comfort of the car. In a sheltered spot out of the arctic winds, we had a picnic lunch and cuppa sitting on the tailgate of the Landy.
‘Stormy Weather Ahead’ (Tas)
Every blog entry since we arrived in Tasmania has mentioned the weather. A trend is developing.
“Why is the forecast so bland? Why instead of ‘stormy’ don’t they just say the sea’s ‘a frothing maelstrom of terror and hopelessness’?” ― Jeremy Clarkson, For Crying Out Loud!
Kruising Around Australia 