Day 2 of our Tasmanian adventure, we decided to start our day super early. We left Launceston even before the sun rose. Our plan for the day included: Launceston to Bay of Fires/St Helens, down to Bicheno, Freycinet National Park, Swansea, Port Arthur. It didn't seem like a long, hard drive, but this was by far the toughest day of driving for us. For Darren at least cause I don't drive! But yup, more on the drive later. For now, let me tell you all about the beautiful scenery. Perks of driving at the crack of dawn! Throughout our drive towards the coast, we passed lots of snow-covered fields. Tasmania is seriously like driving through some sort of 'I Love Australia' Advertisement, or a postcard even. It's that beautiful. My pictures don't do the changing landscapes any justice. You have to be there to see it yourself.So anyway, back on track, after our early morning drive from Launceston, we arrived at St Mary's and decided to have our breakfast at this campy cute little Pancake place. The place was up on the hills and there were some bendy icey roads to it. Interesting fact of the day, people poured sand over these icey bits so cars won't skid! I've never seen that happen on all our trips up to Falls Creek. So that was a first for me. Imagine all the sand they had to get! Perhaps they got it from the nearby beaches? Hmm.
Anyway, we arrived shortly. It was still really early and we were their very first customers. Darren and I were both still sleepy, tired and just hungry. We ordered ourselves some blueberry crepes and ham and cheese ones. They came nice and hot. Melted cheese and all. YUM! I liked the crepes. I thought they were a perfect start to the day. My sort of alarm clock! Not sure if any of you have been there while on a trip to Tasmania. It's pretty cute and worth the stop-over for breakfast. And it does live up to it's Elephanty name. Lots of Elephant bits and pieces in the cafe. They even had elephant chairs. Overall, we got the feel how much the owners love elephants. They even had this signage put up. Darren thought it was hilarious and snapped a picture! 
Moving on, we made our way down toward St Helens. It's pretty nearby. Possibly 20 Mins away from memory. St Helens/Binalong Bay is known for their beautiful Lichen-covered rocks along the Bay of Fires. While planning our trip, we were promised sights like these. However, we ended up with only these. 
Well, they're pretty still, water's ridiculously clear, sand is amazingly white, but nah, rocks aren't that red. It's all photoshop! (Edit: Thanks to the lovely Eve, I now realised, we weren't even at the right area! Oops! No wonder we didn't see much. Haha.) But well, where we were at, there wasn't really anything to do. Especially since it's Winter. I reckon if you go in the summer, it might be nice to swim in there though. We ended up walking around, picking sea shells and stomping on funky seaweed instead. This is the part where I highlight the importance of Gumboots. Mine are from Hunter. I got them 2 Winters ago and I love them. They're the best! Apart from 'fossicking', the workaholic in me also decided to do a little photoshoot of my new Tasmania-inspired artwork, of which you can purchase on my online shop. 
Shortly after the last photo, the waves came crashing in, I got wet. Darren got wet. And my painting narrowly escaped the splashing. Phew! But yes, Winter's icey cold water plus soggy jeans isn't fun at all. So off we hopped onto the car and drove on. It wasn't long before we came across our highlight of the day. An OYSTER SIGNBOARD! I for one don't even like oysters. But Darren LOVES oysters. So needless to say, we pulled over and ordered a dozen. 
This place (I don't even know the name of it) is really random and in the middle of nowhere. But let me just say, I am now an oyster convert. These oysters were SO fresh and sweet. No fishy taste or slimy after bits whatsoever. Hands down, best oysters for me throughout the entire trip. I discovered later while on the trip, my newfound love for Tasmanian Oysters. Had a few too many!Post-Oysters, we made our way towards the Freycinet National Park. Sadly, I think we spent too much time at St Helens, we didn't end up with enough time to explore Freycinet much. We opted for the super short 10 Min walks. Views were still stunning though. There's just something so peaceful about looking out to an endless open sea. By then, it was getting a little dark and we had to hurry down the hill. It was nice being able to spot beautiful coloured rocks though, while up at Freycinet.
We left shortly after taking the above picture. By then, it started getting dark really, really fast. We drove down Freycinet and began our painfully long 3 hour drive to Port Arthur. Remember I mentioned at the start of this post, how tough our drive was? Let me tell you about it now. Thanks to our GPS, we were led to some shorter route. We thought oh yay! Shorter route, even better! But turns out, it was the longest route of our entire trip. We were given directions to this old dirt-track which we thought wouldn't last. But it did! That horrendous dirt-track went on and on. It was a one-way track with SHARP rocks. In my heart, I thought it would lead to some bigger road but unfortunately no! It led us to a creppy old, tall and dark national park. You know the sort you see in Snow White? Yes, that sort! There were no lights, no reflective poles, CRAZY crazy steep slopes, lots of large and small sharp rocks, and too many road kill and deep potholes to even count. The whole time I was just gripping the side of the car in fear, praying that our petit little Honda Jazz would make it through without busting any tyres. It was by far the worst experience driving on holiday ever! There were no other cars in sight, no lights, nothing! At times, you couldn't even see what was ahead. It was just nerve wrecking.
Needless to say, we drove at extra slow speed, for fear of ending up in unwanted trouble. It took us longer than expected to reach Port Arthur and upon arrival, we were both so pooped out. I was aching all over from being so tense! Ugh. We ended up having instant noodles for dinner and going straight to sleep. No fancy steak dinner like we had in Launceston! Hah. On hindsight, I'd say if you were planning a trip to the East Coast of Tassie, I'd suggest allocating more time to cover the whole of the Coast? And also, drive all around towards the start of Binalong Bay, just so you don't miss the red rocks, like Darren and I did. If rocks aren't your thing, just head straight to Freycinet if you're more of a mountain-person like Darren and I am. But then again, everyone's different. You might not like 'hiking' that much. It depends! Alrighty, that's all for today. I'll be back tomorrow with some adventures of Port Arthur! See ya later alligator!
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