23rd January 2010
Time to explore the beautiful Freycinet National Park. On our way, we passed some familiar place names which made us wonder if we were in the right country!
Having established we were indeed in Tasmania and with plenty of water, sunscreen and insect repellent we started up the strenuous, gravelly walk to the lookout over the exquisite Wineglass Bay with its perfect curve of white beach.
The track was quite busy with people heading up to the lookout and continuing on to the beach itself, another steep trail over boulders downwards. Having reached the beach and sat for a while we decided against the hot, sweaty climb back up the same track and decided to continue on the circular loop across to the other side of the peninsula and follow the coastline back to the carpark.
This would take us another 3 hours but we weren’t in a rush. We were rewarded by a very different side of the peninsula, while Wineglass Bay was calm and sheltered, Hazards Beach on the opposite side was much wilder, with white tipped ocean and jellyfish washed up on the beach.
The remainder of the walk took us up into rainforest and followed the coastline back towards Coles Bay where we started from. A long 11km bushwalk, but worth the effort and we thoroughly enjoyed our well-deserved lunch at the end of it.
Back on the road, we continued on our way to Launceston, our stop for the night. Tasmania’s second largest city (not very big), once again we felt as if we’d stepped back in time with the old-fashioned houses, including our motel which dated from the 1870s! Although we arrived at 4pm on Saturday, most of the shops and cafes were already closed and even on a Saturday night the Greek restaurant we visited was really quiet, despite it being Australia day weekend.