Freycinet 1

After saying goodbye to Jim and Sandie yesterday, we made our way to Freycinet and settled into the Big 4 van park. Yeah, a van park and a damned expensive one too. However, the choices were limited as the national parks camp sites are all designated as tent only and are fenced off in a way that precludes anyone from using them unless they can carry the camping gear in on their backs.

I have to say that this echoes the whole feel of the Freycinet peninsula where it seems to be open season on tourists. I am happy (well willing) enough to pay a premium on things where the remoteness (or some other reason) requires it, but adding 30c to a litre of fuel and $10 to a carton of beer simply because you are in an iconic tourist destination is a bit rich. Comparisons are to places in Tassie that are even more off the beaten track so I am not being stupid about it. Fish and chips at $28 per serve was another example.

Even the national parks people seemed focused upon the dollar - we called in to pick up information on walks and camping ("you're not a backpacker carrying your tent on your back? Well you're not welcome") and every single person we spoke to in there responded with "Do you have your parks pass?" as the first thing out of their mouth. It got more than a little wearing.

That said, the place is beautiful. As beautiful as the rest of Tassie's east coast anyway, and we went out and enjoyed it today with walking some of the tracks.

The first walk was to the Cape Tournier to see the lighthouse. As you can see from the image above, the view to the south (Cape Forstier, Mt Graham and Mt Freycinet) is a pearler. It would have been better if it wasn't overcast, but it's a beauty anyway.

The orange lichen on the rocks really lights the place up.

The icture below is of the lighthouse itself. Only a small one though.

These picture is of the view to the north from a couple of different points along the track.

Again, the lichen sticks out doesn't it?

 

After the lighthouse we took a walk down to Sleepy Bay. . . . . . . . . 

 . . . . . . . . and then on to Little Gravelly Beach where, yes you guessed it, the beach was just gravel rather than sand. There were some interesting erosion points around there. The one with Karen in front is one of a series of granite boulders with similar wear patterns and the one with me in front shows where the sea can get to at times and wear away small caves in the rock face.

We got back home (to the van park) early enough to settle down with a couple of Jinnan Tonixx (any Douglas Adams fans out there?) and talk through the day while watching the fairy wrens bobbing around in their madcap way.

Then somebody released the bane of all van parks, a screamer of a kid. This little devil had a scream that was pitched just on the pain threshold and it was making our lives unbearable. I ended up retreating inside to write this!

The highlight of the day? For me it was spotting a tiger snake crossing the road. It was almost black, but it had the characteristic stripes on its flanks although they were grey rather than yellow.

Tomorrow we'll head across to Wineglass Bay to see if it is as beautiful as they say.