Boutique hotels
-
Bay of Fires Lodge & Walk
- Style
- Contemporary eco-chic
- Setting
- Remote coastal headland
Bay of Fires Overview
Tasmania
- Coastline
- Beaches, bays and birds
- Coast life
- Unhurried and unworried
The far-flung Bay of Fires on Tasmania's north-east coast keeps racking up awards as one of the world's top wilderness spots, with a string of pristine white-sand beaches (one more beautiful and empty than the next), dramatic orange lichen-encrusted rocks and pure aquamarine waves.
Despite its natural good looks, the area doesn't raise much of a blip on most tourist radars – a fact the locals are only too happy about. Forget bright city lights, this is lighthouse country, where tempting trekking terrain, out-of-the-way camp sites and snoozy fishing towns offer back-to-basics escapism. It's not just one bay, but rather a procession of blissful beaches, flanked by flower-flocked heathland, where you're as likely to see animals, or seabirds, as your fellow man. The towns hereabouts - practical ports St Helens and Bicheno, unassuming dairy-farming hamlet Pyengana, and former tin-mining boomtowns Gladstone, Weldborough and Derby - are far from urbane, but you'll find inspiring places to eat and drink, or cut loose with outward-bound activities. Named by early explorers who spotted a ring of glinting aboriginal fires around the coast, this ravishing region is sure to fire up your yearnings to chill-out and abandon modern life. So change down a gear and slip into Tassie time - this is Australia at its most untarnished and free.
Beautifully Bay of Fires
Defining the northern edge of the Bay of Fires, Mt William National Park (www.parks.tas.gov.au) was established in 1973, and sustains a mind-blowing menagerie of beasts, in part because its remote location deters the tourist hordes. It is one of the last Tasmanian refuges of the Forester kangaroo, the second-biggest marsupial in the world (two-metres tall and 60kg-plus), akin to the Eastern Grey but stockier and shorter with a different jawline. Also snuffling through the coastal heathland are wombats, wallabies, pademelons, echidnas, brush-tailed possums and Tasmanian devils. Dusk is the best time to see these trammelling mammals or play 'spot the print' by day.
Local Knowledge
- Taxis
- From Launceston or Hobart to the Bay of Fires is quite a trek – it’s unlikely any local taxis will be willing to make the trip (but you could try Taxi Combined Services; 132 227). Within the region, East Coast Taxis (+61 (0)3 6376 2999) operates out of St Helens.
- Tipping culture
- Like elsewhere in Australia, tipping here isn’t mandatory, but add 10 per cent to your bill in restaurants and cafés if your service came with a smile. If a taxi is willing to bring you here from Launceston, the driver will have earned a substantial tip!
- Siesta and fiesta
- Local shops and banks open 9am-5pm, Monday-Friday; many shops also open 10am-4pm on Saturdays. Cafés usually dish up breakfast around 8am and close at 4pm. Restaurants generally serve lunch from 12pm-2.30pm, and dinner from 6pm-9pm. Pubs do lunch from 12-2pm and dinner from 6pm-8pm.
- Packing tips
- Bring your swimmers – the gentle ocean swell rolling into the Bay of Fires is the cleanest and crispest you’re ever likely to hurl yourself into. Take eco-smart solar-powered phone and camera chargers if you're trekking.
- Recommended reads
- From Petal Point to Cockle Creek: A Beach Explorer's Guide to the East Coast of Tasmania, by local sand-seeker Marianne Robertson, delivers the detail on the sublime Bay of Fires. Thylacine by David Owen tells the story of the ill-fated Tasmanian tiger, extinct since 1933 but once common throughout the island’s north east (its last refuge, perhaps?). For a social history of Tasmania, zooming in on the indigenous tribes of the east coast, pick up a copy of In Tasmania by Nicholas Shakespeare.
- Cuisine
- North-east Tasmania is an isolated corner of the globe, but it still manages to drum up some exceptional eating experiences, courtesy of a crop of worldly and ambitious locals. The delightful Angasi restaurant in Binalong Bay is the prime example, plating up palette-pleasing seasonal produce. Seafood is the area's lifeblood, with fishing fleets in towns such as St Helens and Bicheno delivering super-fresh oysters, tuna, perch, marlin, whiting, crayfish and abalone to regional tables. On the booze front, beer is the drink of choice – Launceston’s James Boags brewery (www.boags.com.au) produces pub standards, while microbrewer Wineglass Bay Brewing (www.wineglassbaybrewing.com.au) further south bottles the spicy, malty Hazards Ale. Inland is the cool-climate Pipers River wine belt, home to vineyards Bay of Fires Wines (www.bayoffireswines.com.au), Jansz Estate (www.jansz.com.au) and Pipers Brook (www.kreglingerwineestates.com). Expect some fine chardonnays, pinots and sparking whites.
- Currency
- Australian dollar (AU$).
- Time zone
- GMT + 10.
- Dialling codes
- Country code: +61; Tasmania: (0)3 (drop the zero if dialling from overseas).
- Do go/don't go
- If you’re here to sun weary city bones and splash around in the surf, visit during the Tasmanian summer (December to February), when the ocean is warm(ish) and the weather at its most predictable. Springtime is also lovely (September to November), when an unruly bloom of native wildflowers blankets the hillsides, heathlands and dunes. If you’re looking for end-of-world atmosphere and have a chunky book to get through (isn’t it about time you read War and Peace?), visit in winter (June to August) when storms whip whitecaps across the chilly bay and driftwood piles high on the beach.
Don't go home without...
... slurping down a few oysters.
