Leaving Buckland and our free-camp at the Ye Olde Buckland Inn on Saturday, 11th of April, we meandered like a turtle with a sprained ankle, up the east coast of Tasmania to Freycinet Peninsula, where we’re camped for the next four nights.
Making the most of the drive up to Freycinet, we checked out a couple beaches en route, and stopped to look at the convict built Spiky Bridge which is interesting due to the standing rocks they’ve mortared onto the top of the sides of the bridge, supposedly, as rumour has it, to deter the cows from trying to climb, and then fall, over the sides.
It was then off to Kate’s Berry Farm for a coffee and her famous Humbleberry Pie. Yum, that’s all we’ll say about that. Also, we had a lovely chat to a Qld couple who were also travelling Tassie.
And to cap off our drive into Freycinet, we stopped in at the Devils Corner Winery for a tasting whilst enjoying the magnificent views out to Freycinet in the distance.
Next stop, Honeymoon Bay camping ground in Freycinet Peninsula, just south of Coles Bay.
As it had been for the last few days, it was still blowing a gale when we arrived, so we opted to set up and just chill in the van for the afternoon. Although I did sneak out to try a couple of long-exposure shots of The Hazards, the granite mountain range which dominates the horizon line, from across the Coles Bay. Our van is only parked about 50m from the beach which makes access easy and quick, and provides the added benefit of the sound of gentle lapping waves crashing on the beach all night long. This is camping, Franky!
With the wind still blowing and showers forecast during the day, being Sunday 12/4, we made today our ‘drive and see shit’ day. First stop Cape Tourville Lighthouse and the viewing platforms there, and then off to Sleepy Bay, both of which are on the east side of the peninsula and were mostly out of the wind. Although, turning a corner on the track at the lighthouse this morning exposed us to a howling westerly that was bitterly cold for a bit.
We then drove north up the coast, stopping in at some of the beaches and arriving into Bicheno in time for lunch at the famous Lobster Shack. Despite arriving just after 11:30am, the Lobster Shack was already packed and we had a short queue to order, but splitting up Jules found and secured a table, whilst I queued. Jules tried the house special, Lobster Roll, which she enjoyed, and I the Seafood Chowder, which was also good and chocka full of yummy scallops. Whilst enjoying a glass of Tassie Pinot Gris of course!
Following lunch, we continued north, eventually leaving the coast to drive up through Elephant Pass to the small township of St Marys, where we stopped for a wee. We then drove back down the mountain, to the coast, this time taking the St Marys Pass through the mountains, before winding our way back south to camp for the evening.
Whilst it was only a drive of 180kms today, I was knackered by the time we got home as many of the roads in Tassie are pretty shit, almost always very windy, often very steep with sharp hairpin bends and with lots of wildlife to worry about. The roadkill here is atrocious. And, we’re continually finding the roads frequented by DWAs. Now, I’ll preface this next bit to say, I’m not trying to be racist here, but back in Perth, when someone says DWA, they mean “Driving Whilst Asian”. So, whilst it’s really great to see heaps of tourists, including many heaps of Asian tourists, enjoying our great country; f#ck me, I wish some of them knew how to drive. I know this is really stereotyping here, but in our experience during this trip, the Asian drivers are either very timid, seemingly not sure how to drive in the country, so they’ll do 40km/hr on the 100km/hr open road. But, will then overtake two trucks, the first of which is under the control of a pilot vehicle, who are slowing down to turn right.. We honestly thought this was going to result in a crash and I was on the brakes to ensure I was no where near the situation as it unfolded in front of us!! Then you get Speed Racer McQueen, who’s drifting side-ways, doing 100kms in a steep, windy and very narrow National Park mountain road that’s only gazetted at 40km/hr. This resulted in me needing to swerve off the road to avoid a head on. Rant over. I’m feeling much more relaxed now I’m back in the van and a couple of Martini’s down. Again, I reiterate, I not trying to be racist and I know I’m generalising – but both of the above dangerous situations occurred on the same day and both cars were driven by Asian blokes, and we’ve been experiencing similar incidents all trip.
Back to hiking today, with Jules and I first walking up to the Wineglass Bay Lookout, and then carrying on down to the beach of Wineglass Bay. Unfortunately, we had overcast conditions for most of the day, with the sun only occasionally breaking through in patches. This meant that the typical azure ocean blue and clean white sand of Whiteglass Bay wasn’t as evident today, but it was still beautiful. In fact, I only managed to get one shot that captured the full colours of the famous bay during a rare burst of sunlight. We really enjoyed the hike, despite the nearly 2800 steps you need to do across the return trip up and down over the range, and back again.
Oysters anyone?
We booked ourselves on what was a fantastic tour of an oyster farm today with Oyster Bay Tours, just a few minutes up the road from camp. Declan, our guide, was great, very informative and kept the banter going whilst we donned wetsuit waders and shuffled out into the still waters of the Swanport Estuary. We managed to jag some great weather again, having booked this tour a week ago for what we’d hoped would be a good day according to the BOM forecast – and boy, did we get it right! It’d been blowing a gale for the last 5days and the wind is forecast to pick up again tomorrow, however, today the wind was light and the water nice and calm in the warm sunshine.
Declan explained the oyster lifecycle and farming process and showed us a small 2month old oyster, through to a very large 12 year old oyster, noting that the general age of a restaurant oyster is 2 to 3 years, but this is governed by size, not age.
Declan shucked us a free oyster straight out of the pots and even shucked an oyster for John, the large wild Bream who’s learnt to hang around when the tour is on as Declan invariably shucks an oyster for him.
It was then back to land to learn how to shuck our own oysters, getting to eat them afterwards. Jules and I both opted for the dozen oysters each, which was paired with a lovely Freycinet Vineyard Riesling and finished with some fresh cooked Tassie Blue Mussels. Overall, a great tour, which we really enjoyed.
Following the tour it was 2pm and with nothing else planned for the afternoon, we decided to pop the 20mins up the road to visit and do a wider tasting of the great Freycinet Vineyard wines. This turned out to be a great excursion, and a popular one, with three other couples from our oyster tour also turning up to taste the wines. All wines were good, but the Riesling and Pinot Noir are fantastic, so we bought a couple for later.
It was man versus mountain today! Whilst Jules opted to chill out around camp, I decided to hike up to the summit of Mt Amos, part of the Hazards on Freycinet Peninsula. Other than the challenge of achieving it, the summit provides a much better view of Wineglass Bay and also views out over the ranges and back to Coles Bay. The hike itself is a grade 4 ‘challenging’ hike of about 2kms (one-way), up the 454m to the summit of Mt Amos. The first few hundred metres is a reasonable gravel track with a general incline and a few tree roots to avoid. But, then you turn a corner and hit the granite slopes, ruts and boulders of Mt Amos and spend then next hour or so, ascending, whilst often scrambling up the mount. Some of the sections are pretty hairy and it’s strongly advised not to hike it when it’s wet as the boulder sections are very slippery and there’s no rail or chains to hold onto. Luckily, the weather today was nice and sunny and I found the boulder sections similar to climbing the first section of Uluru (Ayers Rock), although Uluru provided a chain rail to assist.
Without meaning to, I set a good pace up the mount, but I was buggered doing so, having to stop and catch my breath every few minutes as the climb is really strenuous. However, these rests provided great opportunities to look back out over Coles Bay and take the odd pic.
Reaching the summit, I took some time to recover, whilst another group of hikers took their selfies with Wineglass Bay in the distance. Then I grabbed my camera and took a bunch of pics.
After letting Jules know I’d survived the climb and descent back from Mt Amos, I decided to pop back out to Sleepy Bay to do some more exploring now that the sun was out.
That’s a wrap on our Freycinet Peninsula stay! We enjoyed it, particularly when the weather was sunny, with light winds.
Next stop, the Central Plateau of Tasmania and Great Lake.