Bay of Fires - 4th - 6th November 2017

Chris invites you to his 4th long weekend trip to the Bay of Fires. You can join in a relaxed weekend of camping and walking to further explore the southern part of the Bay of Fires region, recognised internationally as one of Tasmania’s most beautiful places.
After leaving Launceston on Saturday morning, the plan is drive through the Fingal Valley to St. Helens and Binnalong Bay, no doubt stopping for sightseeing, coffee and lunch on the way. Camp and local exploration at Cosy Corner, and on Sunday, walk north from The Gardens towards Policeman's Point - a distance of 13 km. Exact arrangements will depend on the enthusiasm and energy of the group, as well as the weather, but Bay of Fires has never been a disappointment to those that have come along and we are able to take all comers. Plenty of beautiful beaches, colourful rocks and dunes to explore.

If you aren't much of a walker, there will be plenty of opportunity to sit around and enjoy the scenery while others do the walking. This is a camping trip, but you won't need to carry your tent all day because the camp area will be accessible by car. You'll need to discuss with the leader about tents and sharing tents, and will need to bring food and other camping necessities such as a sleeping bag! Take a day pack for the actual walks, and sturdy bottles to carry plenty of water. You will need to bring a supply of water for camping needs. See below.
While this trip is rated "medium", you can consider it easy because you can opt out of anything you think is too challenging for you. Children would cope well (if families are well organised for tent camping) on the basis that parents might opt them in or out of some of the walking.

Thinking of bringing along a children's or youth group?
 Click for Information for Leaders working
with Children and Youth

Meeting Times and Places:
If you are interested in going on this walk, please phone your walk leader, Chris Langerak  Ph. 6330 2131 or 0409 808152  to book in. The departure time is 8:30 am on Saturday 5th Nov. from the Door of Hope Church car park, Launceston. Other meeting places by arrangement with leader.
f you would like to arrange to meet the group at these places or elsewhere, please arrange with the leader, and please be at any meeting place 5 minutes ahead of the listed time. The leader should always be notified of any other people you intend to bring along, and you should always contact the walk leader if intending to participate in a particular Boots N' All walk.

To access this area from northern Tasmania: From Launceston, follow the Midland Highway 55km south to the junction of the Esk Main Road at Conara. Turn left and continue 69 km east through Fingal and Esk Main Road to St. Mary's, and then follow the Tasman Highway 38 km north to St. Helen's. At St. Helen's, take the Binnalong Bay road east, then north 8 km before turning left into Gardens Rd. The Cosy Corner camping area is a further 6 km, on the left of the road.

Warnings:
Water! There is no fresh drinking water at the campsite, so please bring along a plentiful supply in sturdy containers for your camping and walking needs (4 litres or more per person per day suggested - Chris suggests a 20 litre container per walker).
Please take note of the weather forecast for the weekend. Be aware of possible hazards such as insect bites and snakes. Prepare for a variety of weather conditions from warm and sunny (hat, sunscreen etc) to cold, wet and windy. Sturdy sneakers or light walking boots would be useful. If you are unsure of equipment requirements, Visit the Boots N' All section of the sutas.org.au website per link below and read "Clothing suggestions for exposed conditions"

 Map details and references: Bay of Fires area:   (most good touring maps will have the main roads) The area south of Eddystone-Larapuna is on map 8515 (George's Bay) in the 1:100000 series and on the Gardens (6044) and Binalong map (6043) in the 1:25000 maps.
There are no Peakbagger points on this trip. For listing of peakbagger points, see the Hobart Walking Club Peakbagger's Guide (2000 revision) which can be found and downloaded (as an Excel spreadsheet) from http://tastracks.webs.com/peakbaggers.htm  The same web page contains several other listings of Tasmanian peaks.

(Read "waypoints" for "track" in this next section. No track details available)

GPX version of the track: Click here to download. Google Earth version of the track: Click here to download.
Right-click on the file and “save target as” to a location of your choice. (Suggest you click the “Last modified” at top to sort by date to get the most recent at top to find the file for the next walk).

When you have downloaded the track file, double-clicking on the Google Earth (kml) track should open Google Earth and zoom in to the location if you have Google Earth installed on your computer. The .gpx version of the track should import into mapping software or devices that support gpx tracks and waypoints.