Camping at Friendly Beaches

After Bicheno we travelled down the east coast of Tasmania to Freycinet National Park.  We made it down the dirt road with our caravan and we were greeted with this lovely view of the ocean. 

There aren’t a lot of spaces in this campground that would suit a large van, we were lucky to get there when we did.  Camping here was free with a national parks pass and a ranger came around at one point to check that we had one.  I don’t seem to have any pictures of our camping spot which was lovely other than that dirty sand that’s almost like ash.  Fortunately we have a great mat that the sand will fall through, but there’s no hope of keeping the kids’ feet clean when we’re in a place like this!

We saw some wildlife while we were here, also.  I heard some rustling outside one night and found a possum sitting on our table rifling through the rubbish that we hadn’t gotten around to putting away for the evening.  That meant possum poo on the mat, which the kids always find entertaining.  There was one little wallaby that hung around, at least I suppose it was the same one, and I managed to get close enough with TurboBug that we could offer it a carrot.  He sniffed it but wasn’t interested. (The wallaby, that is.)  TurboBug was fascinated and watched him quietly.  One or two of us even saw a wombat.  The elusive wombat remains an animal I haven’t seen in the wild so I hustled out for a look but it was gone. 

After we set up that first day we headed down to the beach for a peek.  It was beautiful.  More white sand and plenty of exploring.  The water was calm enough here for the kids to go in, but it was cold so they didn’t spend too much time in the water.

The kids busied themselves right away making sandcastles.

LadyBug was enjoying herself so much.  She was literally dancing in the waves.

If TurboBug sees a sand bucket he knows just what to do, and he gets quite annoyed with anyone who gets in his way.  Just stand back and let this kid fill the bucket with sand and no one will be harmed.  He also spent time digging holes which we’d fill up with water.  He didn’t mind at all that every bucketful disappeared as quickly as we poured it.  That just meant we got to fill up the bucket again!

These two love to pretend they’re surfing.   They maintain a surfer stance while the water crashes around them, then jump the wave and switch to the other side.

Sandcastle cities started appearing all over the hillside.

We took a walk down the beach and found a fairy house.  It was finished with quite some detail including a front porch, furniture inside, and trees for the garden.  My younger kids are still not quite sure whether to believe it is an actual fairy house or not.  :)

I love seagulls.  I may be the only person to ever utter that sentence!  I love to watch them, some of them are quite beautiful.

More pictures of the beautiful area.

I love it when toddlers learn to smile for the camera.  It makes for interesting expressions sometimes. 

At this beach the kids were much more interested in playing than exploring.  They had quite the sand fight.

Dad fished.  He even got up early every morning and fished some more.  His grand total was one flathead and one mackerel.  His first ever ocean fish, so I think he quite liked Friendly Beaches as well.

The sand was so fine here, so so soft and so beautifully white.

Toward the late afternoon some of these jellyfish started washing up on the shore.  They were fascinating.  Such a striking blue colour.  They’re called Velella, also known as ‘by-the-wind sailors’ because they have a little sail on top that helps them catch the wind and move across the water.

We left our sandcastle cities in tact, mostly.  The kids couldn’t resist smashing a few.  In our later trips to the beach it was great fun to observe which were still standing. 

 

Back at the caravan we pulled out a drawing book I brought along and the boys were engrossed with it for ages, drawing cities and little worlds. We even got some schooling done here.

One last look…

Sigh.  Tasmania, what lovely coasts you have!

Mountain Stream Fishery & Free Camping in Scottsdale, Tasmania

Sometimes my kids get along beautifully and I find them doing things like this.  Playing peacefully and joyfully together.  Other times, not so much.

We stayed in this free camp in Scottsdale.  There was a small lake on one side and a busy highway on the other.  We were constantly chasing TurboBug since he loved pushing his pram up and down the road in the camp.  He loved this spot because of all the big trucks that drove by on the highway.  When we first got there we parked him in his little camping chair and listened to him call out “duck” (for truck) and “whoa” every time one went by.

There was a mama duck who brought her little ones around twice a day for handouts.  She always hung back while her babies rushed forward.  They were not timid and would come right up to us and nearly take food from our hands.  Then she’d round them up and head them back toward the water.  The white duck in her brood made us laugh.  ‘One of these things is not like the other.’ (That’s from Sesame Street back in the day!)

Our last morning here she brought them around before TurboBug had woken up so I took him over to the lake for a last feed.  We found some very tiny ducks in the water there, hiding in the reeds.

Sean’s uncle told us all about the greatest fishing spot ever.  We decided to make the drive to Targa to see for ourselves.  Mountain Stream Fishery is a great family outing, you’re guaranteed to catch a fish and they even clean them for you!

This is LadyBug’s first fish ever.  She was very excited.  She went first out of all of us and ended up with the biggest fish! It took her a few tries but she was very motivated.  ‘I catched one, I catched one!’ Not quite willing to hold it, though!

JitterBug caught his on the first try.  He could barely wait for his turn and it was over in a flash.  He didn’t seem the least bit disappointed, though.

SkeeterBug also caught his on the first try!

These are some good-sized trout!  You pay by the kilo here, they were proud to catch such big fish!

The adults had a go too.  Couldn’t resist.

We ended up with five of these trout, weighing in at four kilos.  At one point TurboBug was over there with the line in the water.  There are so many fish in the water that he nearly caught one too!

Excited kids after all the fishing was done.  TurboBug’s job was to hold the fishhook remover and hand it over to Dad as needed.  He was very good at his job and needed convincing to hand it over at the end.

We headed back to the building where they cleaned the fish for us.  We were able to go right into the room and watch the whole process.  She even answered all our questions about fish anatomy and anything else that came up.  (Why do you have so many knives?  How do you clean the room?)  It was a lovely experience and special for the kids, they were treated so well, this place really understands how to interact with families.

We weren’t allowed to fish out of this pool but you can purchase food to give them a feed if you’d like.  There were a couple of these golden trout in the water we fished and though we all hoped to catch one none of us were successful.  They told us that the golden trout will follow the lure but they rarely bite and though there have been many hopefuls there have been few who’ve caught one.

That night we dined on two of the fish.  TurboBug was right in there with the preparing.  He saw Dad stuffing them with tomato and onion and he took to helping right away.  He was so intent on what he was doing, so serious about this business of preparing dinner.

Like this?  Fold it like this?  I can totally do that.

My sweet, sweet seven year old.  Love him so much.  It’s hard to get a good smile out of him on camera, so this is one of my favourite close-ups of him because that smile is so real.  Can you believe he hasn’t lost any teeth yet?  He’s checking them every day for wiggles!

Dinner is served!  We cooked these on our Weber BabyQ.  Perfect.

Cheesy grin.  I think I caught him picking food from his teeth.  Look at that crater dimple!

The free camp here was more like a rest area, with flush toilets and a pay shower. It was quite busy with many people stopping over just for the night.  We opted to stay two nights and then continued on to the east coast.