14 January - East Coast Getaway – Day 2

Day 2 of the getaway, and we foolishly thought we would again try a visit to the beach.

Now to preface this, previous beach visits have generally ended with me carrying Eli away, as he REALLY does not like the feeling of sand on his toes.

And Im confident in saying that today was NO DIFFERENT. He did however enjoy the park beside the beach, once I managed to clean every grain of sand off his feet, and sandals.

Grace had a ball though, buried as a mermaid and building sandcastles.

Then in the afternoon we went to the place that in 2009 Lonely Planet named the world's "hottest" travel destination. Hmmmm. Im thinking with some of the other recent accolades that Lonely Planet have heaped on various parts of Tasmania, that the author may well be Premier Will Hodgman himself. Or at least one of his many advisors.

Whilst Im not saying the Bay of Fires wasnt special at all, I am saying, it wasnt terribly special. It was some lovely green/blue water beside a very white beach, with some rocks covered in orange lichen.

From photos I had seen (along with the Lonely Planet recommendation), I was expecting IMPRESSIVE rocks, and lots of them. But no. Perhaps since 2009, global warming has taken its toll. Perhaps my eyesight isnt what it used to be, and they were more orange than they looked. But to me, without adding some artistic filters, they were decidely underwhelming. Still, at least I can say Ive been there. (Ive also been to plenty of other underwhelming places too, Im not just singling this one out!)

I left, wondering if the Lonely Planet author had in fact, ever been to the Bay of Fires, and if so, had he/she also travelled anywhere else in the world.

I mean, my world travels are pretty limited, but even in the small amount I have done I can list a number of things far more impressive than the Bay of Fires. Such as:

- The Colloseum in Rome

- The Vatican and St Peters Basilica

- The Trevi Fountain

- In Fact, just about ALL OF ROME

- The Skytree in Tokyo

- Anywhere on Jeju island

See…When you travel, even a little bit, its easy to come up with a list of better things. True, not all of them are natural features like the Bay of Fires. But Hey, Lonely Planet didnt call it the ‘Best Natural formation on Earth’, for which I would still say there are far better (Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls spring to mind quickly). They called it the world's "hottest" travel destination.