The Bay of Fires, Binalong Bay and on to Launceston....

THE BAY OF FIRES is on the North East Coast of Tasmania and stretches 29km from Binalong Bay in the South to Eddystone Point in the North. It is an area of remote sun drenched white sandy beaches broken up with headlands of the famous orange lichen covered granite boulders. It was named by Capt. Tobias Furneaux of the HMS Adventure on the 17th March 1773. It was named thus because of the number of fires the local aborigines had alight inland of the coast. The Aboriginal name for the Bay of Fires is Larapuna.

BINALONG BAY is the only town on the Bay of Fires and is a holiday village with a permanent population of around 200.

Despite the miserable weather yesterday, today (Saturday 8th November), we were able to venture down to the beach at Binalong Bay which is a popular surf spot - it is at the southern end of the mesmerisingly beautiful Bay of Fires and although the weather was very windy the sky was blue and the sea a bright turquoise blue albeit a very rough sea! The beach itself, a white quartz sand, with blue-green she-oaks and emerald boobyalla fringing the beach - quite stunning.

We took the partly sealed coastal drive to the scenic spot known as The Gardens before retracing our tracks and picking up the Tasman Highway cutting across the northeast highlands towards Launceston where we will be house and pet sitting for the next 3 weeks.