From Freycinet, we travelled North towards St Helen's. We picked a free camp on the basis that we could have a fire and that there was a beach. It proved to be a wise choice because it was at Lagoons that we met John and Karin Cunningham and their children Grace and William. They were from WA and had been on the road for four months. Tom and John hit it off right away, sharing tales of surfing derring- do and discovering that they were both carpenters. I liked Karin immediately and we found much to talk about in our tastes in books, music and thoughts on life, the universe and everything.
We celebrated Oscar's 5th birthday with a cake and candles and much Lego building. It was lovely to spend a couple of days not moving, we even put the Annexe up!
Tom managed to get a couple of surfs in but it was not very big. We also visited the Ironhouse Brewery which was an extraordinary project of boutique brewing and luxury accommodation with a long term vision of wine, helicopter pads and the spending of around 20 mill before it turned a profit! I didn't manage to find out who the billionaire behind the venture was, but it must have been a serious tax write off venture.
I spent a few hours driving around to find a birthday cake for Oscar and found the most fantastic lolly shop in St Helens. It was nearly Easter, so I spent up on yummy eggs and good old uk favourites. St Helens felt quite cosmopolitan compared to our recent free camp roughing it spots, with a big IGA, hardware shops and bakery. It was also the service town for the famous Bay of Fires and had lots of caravans to-ing and fro-ing along the pretty waterfront highway. I was particularly grateful to find it because my other nearest town choice for yummy birthday dinner treats was St Mary's, which although given the same weight of importance as St Helen's on the map( same size typeface, which usually denotes towns of similar size and amenities ), actually turned out to be a one horse town of the sort that closed its tiny supermarket on a Saturday afternoon and anyway, only stocked the sort of cakes god fearing folk eat ( the ones without icing, sugar or eggs in them). St Mary's was the reason it took me three hours to find Oscar's birthday cake as it was to there I went first. I would like to have a quiet chat with the map makers of Tasmania!