Freycinet Peninsula

Morning at Lake Leake brought reduced grey skies, reduced frequency of wind gusts (observable approaching around the lake in the trees, or across the lake on the water’s surface, giving us time to brace ourselves inside the three sided shelter). Forecast was for improved & even sunny conditions & they were correct. Having returned down the mountain to the highway we first stocked up with supplies at Swansea.Don’t you just love all the names of UK towns used here in Tassie. It’s quite strange because growing up in the UK one has some knowledge of UK towns, even if never visited mostly you know something about them. This in turn creates an impression, an expectation, & it’s hard not to let this influence our expectations of places here with the same names. Of course they never are the same. On this occasion Swansea is a small seaside town with perhaps half a dozen shops, overlooking Oyster Bay. The sort of place Tasmanians take their caravan to for a weekend away.

And so to the Freycinet Peninsula. Actually we checked out some National Park camping at the northern end of the Peninsula, overlooking the ocean, found it to our liking & decided to stay, using it as a base camp to explore the peninsula from. Friendly Beaches (2 of them divided by orange tinged rocky outcrops) are long white sandy beaches with ocean that varies from bright aquamarine to dark & grey, depending upon how much or how little cloud there is to let the sun through. Camping above the beach in individual camp sites cut into the sheltering scrub made it an easy place to stay a few days. My fishing haul was restricted to one Pike (nothing like an English Pike) which was far too small to bother eating. I saw a couple of Salmon & a few squid caught, but mostly others had much the same luck as me, & it wasn’t for the lack of trying. Around our camp we had local visitors every day. Cecil the golden headed blue tongue lizard welcomed us. Blue wrens have been numerous as have the very tame Bennetts Wallabies. Last night, after I had gone to bed early MrsTea & our young French backpacker neighbours saw a spotted Quoll at close quarters investigating my fishing bucket which still had some bait in it.

Easy to stay at with great walks along footprint free beaches, exploring rock pools, watching surfers strut their stuff on the waves etc, but yesterday we took the car & drove into Coles Bay & onto a number of pretty spots lower down the peninsular. We walked up to the the Wineglass Bay lookout, a steep walk with quite a few rock steps, which the info board at the bottom declared ‘This may well be the hardest walk you undertake in Tasmania, but it will be worth it.’ Wineglass Bay apparently makes it into a list of the World’s top ten beaches. We have seen enticing photos but unfortunately our own viewing failed to live up to photos due to heavy cloud cover. We had thought about including the walk down from the lookout to the Bay, but deemed it unwise, not wanting to push my slightly improved knee too much, & descending the mountain & climbing back up, including the 960 steps each way, in addition to those we still had to descend back to the car just seemed silly, despite the attraction of seeing the bay from a perspective that the majority don’t. Perhaps another time?

The photos below show some of the many pretty locations we enjoyed. Tomorrow morning we will move on, stopping at Bicheno for a few more supplies & then on to some other piece of beachside paradise, as yet not determined.