FriendlyBrooks

Doing kayaking together has been fantastic. I highly recommend the Razor Back inflatable kayak.

Lance Brooks, master kayaker ,reverser, fisherman and possum beater, February 2026

Our first night in the Bay of Fires wasn’t as peaceful as we might have hoped. While we were eating our dinner we were visited by a food motivated possum who was not at all scared of us. When I was washing up it tried to come into the van and then started climbing all over the outside garbage bag. We closed up everything as securely as we could and got into bed… and listened to them crawling all over our roof. Lance tried pushing at them through the canvas and that seemed to help as they eventually went away, or we fell asleep despite them.

We awoke to a possum free campsite and a glorious sunny day. Lance had gotten up early and met a regular visitor to the area who told him of a beautiful rock pool.  It was only about a 10 minute walk away. It is a spectacular round deep crystal clear pool. Perfect for diving into. It was a little chilly so we had to jump in, get out bask in the sun on the rocks and repeat. Several times. We spent a pleasant morning there.

After lunch we went for a drive around the area, stopping at the different beaches. We walked all of Cosy Corner and climbed the rocks.

Then we headed north to look at The Gardens and the main lookouts at the Bay of Fires.

We arrived back to our campsite to find that we now had 2 young couples camping in our corner with us, one who were German asked if they could use our Starlink.  We gladly let him but it turned out it was a mistake as by the next morning our data usage had gone up dramatically.

Lance cooked a baked chicken for dinner and it was very tasty. We zipped up everything to ward off the possums and Lance also sprayed eucalyptus oil everywhere. And it might have worked as we had no marsupial visitors that night.

We had decided that we would play golf the next day but when we spoke to Jack he suggested that we drive inland a bit and see Halls Falls and the Pub in the Paddock. In true Lance and Angela style we managed to squeeze all activities into one day. All worth it. But first we had to stop and buy some fresh oysters from Lease 65 ($30 for a dozen) and get petrol and visit the garbage dump. (not necessarily in that order).

First on the  packed itinerary was a lovely lunch of Tasmanian scallops and salt and pepper prawns at the PITP.

Hall’s Falls were very pretty, situated in a lovely forest of huge eucalypts, complete with wildlife. At the top of the falls was a weir built by miners which created some lovely rock pools where we swam.  As we had forgotten our swimsuits we had to make do with an underwear swim.

We arrived at the golf course at 5.45pm and finished our game just before dark. We stopped off at the supermarket for some fish which we ate with the oysters.

Tonight’s neighbours consisted of a new young couple, new grey nomads, a Chinese family in a campervan and a solo cyclist. What a crowd! But even with so many people near us it felt like we were alone.

We had decided to have a local day for our last day in the Bay of Fires and not do too much. True to that promise I slept in.  As soon as I was up we got our kayak out. Since it was a little later than we had intended leaving, the wind had gotten up a bit, which made for a difficult and splashy paddle. Nonetheless, mostly because of Lance’s prowess in a kayak, we made it around to Swimcart Beach and then we paddled back to Cozy Corner for a snorkel and relax on the beach.

Once back we had a late brunch. I read and lazed around all afternoon but Lance used his time wisely by snorkeling with a spear gun, catching 2 small sea mullet which we ate for an entree for dinner.

After 4  nights, our longest stay of the trip, it was time to leave the Bay of Fires. The day was a little gloomy but good for driving down the coast. As it was Sunday, we stopped for Mass in Bicheno. Luckily we went because Lance and I made up the congregation number to 6 (including a baby). Bicheno is a lovely little town with beautiful scenery. We decided to do the foreshore walk which we thought would only be a kilometre or so. In fact it was more than 3 kilometres one way, leading past Bicheno’s key sights – The Gulch, the Blowhole and the Lobster Shack.

But the best thing was that we managed to find a place true to my heart – a wine bar right on the rocky headland. We drank wine and ate oysters (this is starting to become a habit).

Once we got back to the car and drove to our next destination, Freycinet it was quite late in the day. As it turns out, too late in the day to find any camping spots, free or paid. We drove around to all the recommended sites and they were all full. Cassie had suggested a great spot that’s managed by the climbing association but it was down a pretty crazy dirt road so we didn’t attempt it with our trailer, mostly because I was too nervous. We checked out the golf club that has free camping, we called a luxury hotel and decided that $3000 per night was too much! We drove into the fully booked National Parks campground twice just to check that it really was fully booked. Lance is getting very good at turning around in tight spaces with a trailer and he won a few hearts with his impressive skills turning around in the packed National Parks campground. Whilst doing the multi point turns we realised that there were in fact a couple of spaces free. It was already after 7pm so we thought, why not try parking in one and if nobody comes we’ll stay. We got out our chairs and had a picnic dinner on the leftover chicken and some humus and bread, plus a glass of wine 🍷. After a bit a  campervan with 3 young women pulled up. They were apologetic but we were in their spot. No problem we’ll move to the next one. So the master reverser pulls out and backs into the next spot in one go- easy peasy. By now its getting dark and still no one came to claim the spot. So we began setting up and got into bed at about 9.30. We watched every car that came by and nobody came. We finally fell asleep confident that we would not be moved on. But we were awoken an hour or so later by guess what – more bloody possums on our roof ( not eating cake @MichelleCMiller).