September 10

Thursday 10 September

We left Bridport this morning and decided to continue heading east towards Gladstone. Again some beautiful scenery along the way. I love that there are farms with cows and sheep and at the back of the paddock is the sand dunes and the beach. Bit of a dirt road for some of the way but it wasn’t too bad.

From Gladstone we headed down towards a place called Moorina where there was a historic Chinese Cemetery but alas, we were unable to find it. Well we did find a cemetery but we don’t think it was the right one.

From Moorina, it was to a little place called Pyengana where they have a cheese factory. They produce various cheddars and gotta say they were delicious, so of course, we had to get a few to bring home. They compliment the cheese we bought in Burnie you see.

We decided to go to the east coast and see the Bay of Fires, so it was off to St Helens and up to a little place called The Gardens. Absolutely beautiful. The water was a gorgeous clear light jade-ish green and the rocks were covered in bright orange lichen. The photos we took don’t do it justice at all. I could have sat there in awe for hours and found it very hard to leave.

We had some lunch back in at St Helens and then headed back towards Pyengana as it was a back road to Ringarooma. I have to say the road was pretty dodgy. It was a dirt road that seemed ok at first, but as you go further on there were lots of corrugations and potholes of various sizes.

We stopped at a place called Ralph Falls and walked about 10 minutes into the forest until we reached the falls. The falls go down a cliff face and were impressive although nowhere near as pretty as Russell Falls. The walk in and out to the falls was nice though, albeit one that gave you plenty of exercise.

We arrived back at Ringarooma around 4pm-ish and Loraine arrived back from Hobart around 6pm. We were able to spend a little more time with her tonight which was nice. Loraine and her daughter Shannon both gave me a gift for my birthday. Shannon gave me a little cow as a memento of Tasmania and Loraine gave me a beautiful crystal dish. Off to bed and then up early as tomorrow we fly home.