This morning we woke up in at the Bay of Fires Bush Retreat. We had a pretty good sleep here because the bed was big and comfy. It rained pretty much all night but we slept soundly. By the morning the rain had stopped which we were glad for because of the day of activities we had planned. It was also our 10 year anniversary today!

Unfortunately the night before the Optus tower must have been damaged from the rain as we lost service. We wanted to have breakfast at St Helens before heading off the day and we had forgotten to check the updates on road closures before we set off. We got to the causeway over to St Helens and it was closed. We had to drive back to where we started as that was where the detour was and it was a long windy dirt road. We finally got back to the main road and made it to St Helens.

We just stopped at Banjo’s Bakery which is a chain of bakeries in Tasmania. Ronnie had a plain pie he really enjoyed and I had a sausage roll and cheese and bacon roll. It was the tiniest non-party size sausage roll we’d ever seen but it was pretty yummy. They also had free sauce packets which is a plus! We then started the rest of our drive all the way down the East Coast of Tasmania to Freycinet. The drive was really beautiful.

The biggest draw for Freycinet is Wineglass Bay. Many think the name for the bay just comes from the shape but unfortunately that’s just part of it. Whaling used to occur there and the blood from this turned the bay red. The bay is only accessible by hiking or by boat. We planned to just do the 1.5 hour hike to the lookout and see it from a distance. It was a short but tough slog up to the lookout. The track was well formed but the stairs were rough on the ankles. The view was well worth it though.

After we completed the short hike we were hungry for lunch. We wanted to go have pizza and a glass of wine for lunch at Devils Corner Cellar Door. We drove there and finally arrive 30 minutes later but it was closed! It wasn’t meant to be closed but they closed due to the weather the day before. The weather was quite nice then and we didn’t come across any water over the roads so we were really disappointed to find it was closed.

We decided to head back up the coast slightly to Bicheno where we were staying for the night. It’s a small town with limited food options but we spotted a cafe called Food & Brew and settled on it for lunch. It turned out to be quite decent. The man serving there was super friendly. They did wood fired pizza so I still got a pizza and Ronnie went with a wagyu beef burger because he was craving a burger. It was all yummy and hit the spot.

After lunch we went down to the water for the nice views. We visited the Bicheno Blowhole which was pretty cool. The rocks were orange from the lichen which is what we were meant to see at the Bay of Fires but didn’t because of the weather.

After this we checked into the Airbnb. It was a little modern studio / shack near the hosts house but we never met the owners. It was cozy and the bed was nice and big. We rested here for a while before dinner.

We went to the highly recommended Lobster Shack for dinner. We ordered lobster with Garlic Butter and calamari to share. The calamari order was a bit of a mistake but the lobster was really delicious. We hadn’t had it before and enjoyed it a lot for our first time trying it. For dessert we ordered gelato they had there and took it out near the water to enjoy. Out in the distance we spotted a seal enjoying the evening sun on the rocks.

After dinner we had a penguin tour booked. We checked in to the tour and were driven on a mini bus to the penguin rookery to see them coming home for the night. Due to the bad weather the day before not many came home while we were there. There were multiple tour times so you can’t be sure how many you will see. We ended up seeing around 20 Blue penguins which are the really small ones. They were super cute. They swim out to the continental shelf which is a three hour swim away, have a feed then come home to the rookery for the night. It was a nice way to end the night.

After the tour we went back to the Airbnb and curled up in bed watching We’re the Millers before drifting off to sleep. The day was a great way to spend celebrating the milestone we reached in our relationship.