Freycinet National Park

[Kyle]Anchored off Maria Island, a change in Begonia’s motion in the pre-dawn darkness signaled that the wind had reversed direction. We now had tailwinds for the day’s leg north. We reluctantly dragged ourselves out of bed and got going.

To begin with, Freycinet was a fairly long sail north. In addition to the sail itself, we were also planning an intermediate stop at Ile des Phoques, also known as White Rock, which is strange because Ile des Phoques translates to Seal Island in French. Anyway, it has lots of fur seals and seabirds, but it is also riddled with giant caves that are big enough to take a boat inside and even through to the other side of the island. Begonia’s mast is a bit of a problem, but our dinghy would fit just fine. The water surrounding Ile des Phoques is all too deep for anchoring, so our plan was to each go in the dinghy in turn, while the other one loiters nearby in Begonia.

Once we got there, though, our plans changed. The leftover swell from the previous few day’s winds was still running. When it approached the island, what didn’t explode into spray on the rocks magnified as it entered each cave. It was quickly apparent that it would NOT be safe to enter any of the caves. Well, that’s a real time saver. We decided instead to do a lap in Begonia.

We spotted plenty of fur seals and penguins in the waters around Ile des Phoques (Seal Island)

We watched the swell enter and leave the big caves, accompanied by lots of spray and big booming noises. Around the (sheltered) other side, we found the bulk of Ile des Phoques seal population. The little island is just a big chunk of rock with no access other than up sixty-degree slopes of bare rock interspersed with tiny ledges. Most of the ledge space was occupied by seals all of the way to the summit. Put a pair of mittens on me and my legs in a sleeping bag and I seriously doubt I would be agile enough to climb that rock. Going down looks especially harrowing. As we passed by, enough of the seals were spooked by us that we got to see several examples of how to flee the cliffs for the safety of the water or vice versa. The most common mode of egress seems to be the Spaghetti Method, where they shoot out of the water onto the wall. If they’re ready, they’ll stick. If not, it’s back into the ocean for another try.

As we were happily enjoying all of these antics, we drifted into the island’s lee. WHEW!! The ammonia smell of the guano nearly knocked us on our feet. Someone had just cracked open the world’s biggest tube of smelling salts. We’re awake! We’re Awake! Time to get outta here!

After a few more miles sailing in the refreshingly fragrant lee of southeastern Tasmania’s eucalypt forests, we arrived in Coles Bay. Coles Bay is a small settlement, but it is the biggest thing around. The roads and trails entering Freycinet National Park begin here, so it hosts a scattering of supporting infrastructure.

We have been on most of the trails within during our visits to Wineglass Bay and were hoping to walk something new on this, the opposite side of the peninsula. My first instinct was to go up Mt Amos, the northern bookend to Wineglass Bay. After a bit of research, though, it seemed like some parts of the trail could be pretty hairy, particularly if there was any chance of precipitation whatsoever, which there was. We decided instead to do a big loop to Cape Tourville Lighthouse and the adjacent lookout.

At the Tourist Office, I went to ask the woman behind the counter about the hike. She started by giving me driving directions to the trailhead at Cape Tourville. When I explained that we were walking, she looked at me like I was a tedious idiot and repeated the same directions, emphasizing that there were trails at the end. When I explained that we did not have a car, she must have decided I was lying because how do you get to Coles Bay without a car? I then got a third retelling, only a bit slower this time. ”Okay”, I smiled, “Thanks so much!” Well at least I gleaned that part of our journey was going to be on a drivable surface.

We walked across the peninsula on a beautiful day

It wasn’t bad. We only saw about five cars the whole way and it was nice to walk on a good, improved surface. After the lighthouse, with its view of the southern half of Wineglass Bay, we returned via a much quieter 4WD route that deposited us at the opposite side of Coles Bay from Begonia.

We visited the Cape Tourville Lighthouse where a small group of lizards appeared to befriend us and beg for food(?) at our feet when we stopped for our packed-lunch with a view

We were now pretty tired and hungry, so it was such a great coincidence (or was it?) that we had to pass right by the town’s only pub. The kitchen would not be open for forty minutes, but we were invited to order drinks at the bar to have while we wait.

That went okay, but then Maryanne noticed that almost all of the other tables in the place had ‘Reserved’ signs on them. It appeared that the entire population of the adjacent RV campground were planning to join us soon. To get a jump on this, Maryanne decided to see if she could put our order in now for when the kitchen opened. She was met with an entire staff who were doing that airline gate agent thing where they would occupy themselves with some small task while completely ignoring the person standing right on the other side of the counter from them. It took her half of our wait time just to get an acknowledgement of her presence. Our orders came out right as the crowds arrived and to be fair, the food was really good, but we knew it would be faster to buy our desserts from the convenience store on the way home than to try to catch someone’s eye at the pub.

Views of The Hazards (the mountains in the distance) from trails around Coles Bay

A storm was on its way. Like the last, this one would be screaming out of the north, then be replaced with southern winds. To better position ourselves for this, we moved a few miles down the Freycinet Peninsula to Bryans Corner. There, we inadvertently intercepted and were suddenly swallowed up in the Van Diemen’s Land Circumnavigators. This mini rally left from Hobart a few days behind us for their counter-clockwise lap of the state. We had previously seen several of them on AIS and just thought it was because it was a nice weekend, not realizing that they were all travelling as one group. Had I known Bryans was their destination for the night, I might have chosen somewhere else to avoid the Cruise Ship Day atmosphere, but we got there before most of them showed up.

We chose a spot amongst the few boats already there that was both protected and spaced so that none of us would run the risk of dragging into anyone else if any anchors started letting go. Then the rest of them showed up and nixed that plan. Apparently, the key to safety in a storm is to be able to jump onto the adjacent boat’s deck if something goes wrong with yours. Suddenly it was New Year’s Eve in Sydney again. Well, okay, not that bad. We have been getting pretty spoiled lately. If we ever make it back to the Caribbean, an anchorage like this will make us wonder, “Where is everybody?”

Most got the spacing pretty even, with the exception of the guy at our port bow. He really wanted to be tucked into the quite reasonable space between us and the next boat instead of behind us in the wide-open spaces with the plebs. On the fourth try, he finally got his boat where he wanted it, less than ten meters from us. I guess he figures that if he makes a running jump, the big trampoline is a safer landing spot than the deck hardware on the monohull opposite him. To his credit, he did keep a watchful eye on things. Every time our boats would approach while sailing on our anchors, he would come out into his cockpit and stare at us for a while before deciding we weren’t going to hit and returning back down below. From his expression, I always got the feeling he thought we were doing something wrong. Maybe he was just concentrating.

The storm turned out to be a big dud. I don’t know if it was because the land to windward did a really good job of blocking the wind or if there just didn’t turn out to be that much of it to begin with. That kept us from having to take part in any anchor dragging drama, I suppose. The day ended up seeming like just a slightly choppy one. We probably could have risked going ashore, but we had stuff to catch up on and it was still Cruise Ship Day on the beach.

With the peak of the storm past, my real worry was what would happen to all of us at the 4am wind reversal. My answer came when a very nearby clunk broke the silence. I suspected it was our neighbor’s anchor coming home on its roller. I emerged to find his lights receding into the darkness. He wasn’t the only one. Three more sets could be seen forming a line in front of him. We now had plenty of space, so I went back to bed.

When we emerged later, every other boat in the bay had gone. I was relieved to have our new-found privacy until I checked on them and found them all heading north along the coast like circus elephants holding each other’s tails. Uh, oh. Maybe they are going where we are going. They are ahead of us on bigger, faster boats and they might take up all of the berthing and anchoring space when they get there. Oh, I don’t like this one bit!

To see our other visits to Freycinet - see our trips to Wineglass Bay in Jan 2022 and in Feb 2020. We managed to do see different areas on each visit (lots of hiking, and great views).

Return To Maria Island

[Kyle]As I had said when we left the last time (in January this year), I definitely wanted to spend more time at Maria Island.

Sailing from Bruny to Maria (via the Tasman Peninsula)

We did an overnight sail from Bruny Island, crossing Storm Bay. My night watch was particularly good. Almost as soon As I went out to the helm, I was joined by a big pod of perhaps twenty dolphins. They streaked through the bioluminescence like so many heat-seeking missiles heading for a warm spot under the trampoline. They followed us for hours, peeling off and circling back. The glow from their wakes actually made their underwater movements easier to track than in the daytime.

That would have been great in itself, but I also got to finally, FINALLY get an unmistakable view of the Aurora Australis. So far, every time the Southern Lights have been active and we have been where we actually have a chance of seeing them, it has been cloudy or we have been too close to a city. We were headed northbound again, so our chances would only decrease from here. I so wanted to be able to see the ‘other’, southern ones, too. I don’t intend to be annoying at parties, but it’s nice to know I could be.

When the morning twilight ended all of that fun, we had a few minutes, then passed by Tasman Island at sunrise. The Dennison Canal route is shorter, but the dramatic scenery going the long way around is just the kind of stuff sailing dreams are made of. We passed way under the cliffs of the island and even further under the cliffs of Cape Pillar before passing the columns at Cape Huay, this time with no tightrope walker in evidence, before making for Riedle Bay on Maria Island.

Maria is like a mini Bruny in that it is two large land masses connected by a skinny isthmus. Riedle Bay is the eastern compliment to Shoal Bay/Chinaman’s Bay on the opposite, western side. It is there that we had anchored on the way south. Being on the exposed side of the island makes Riedle deeper, subject to more swell and less populated than Chinaman’s Bay. We tucked in to the calmest corner and dropped anchor next to a lone commercial fishing boat.

The sky was clear again (and cold!), with no artificial lights. The aurora was still going and was even stronger than the night before, even sporting a few well-defined curtains shimmering away {Maryanne: Normally in Tasmania the aurora is only seen using a camara with a long exposure, so it was extra special to see a glimpse of it with the naked eye; I can only imagine how it special it might have looked if long-exposures would work from a moving boat}.

Since we had last walked north of the isthmus (Point Lesueur), this time we decided to take the trail south to Haunted Bay. The walk over the island starts off with a grade so shallow that is almost unnoticeable. It peaks way on the other side and then plunges steeply back down to the water. There’s little hint of what’s to come until the end, then it emerges into a world of sculpted rock covered in bright orange lichen that contrasts the deep blue water below. We scrambled left and right (and up and down), amazed at the perfect photogenic positioning of each new vista. The start of the walk back was tough, but it was so worth it.

Stunning Haunted Bay

Back at the isthmus, we realized our mileage (kilometerage?) for the day was only in the teens, so we decided to do tomorrow’s trail now and headed to the end of the other southern trail on to Robey’s Farm. There, we met another American, another Brit and some German guy, who were on a day trip all of the way from the other side of Maria Island at Darlington. We told them Haunted Bay was really cool, then realized they didn’t have enough daylight left to go there if they were still going to make it to their ferry. Oops!

Robey's Farm and some wildlife along the trails

A peak at Shoal Bay (across the isthmus)

And the wilder Riedle Bay

We had a lazy day aboard and then moved the boat across to the North side of Riedle Bay at Whaler’s Cove. There, we found a deep spot just big enough for our swing and dropped the anchor. Instead of sand and surf, Whaler’s is surrounded by bright orange rock formations like a smaller version of Haunted Bay. There are no hiking trails here, so Maryanne pumped up the new kayak and we headed out in that. There are lots of cool nooks and crannies, but the best of them was the big rock window eroded through one of the adjacent islets. I dropped Maryanne off and she scrambled around taking pictures of me in the kayak while I took pictures of her on the rocks.

We also did a short hike up the riverbed that feeds into Whaler’s Cove. It petered out long before we were able to consider our walk exercise, but it was a pretty diversion from paddling. Our big find there was a meter-long snake sitting on a rock on the other side of a downed tree we were trying to traverse.

Exploring around Whalers' Cove

Tasmania has three species of snake. Two are venomous, the other is not not venomous. That last one is the white-lipped snake. Ours looked like that one, except that I got a pretty good, long look at its face and didn’t see the telltale white lips, so it may have been one of the other two. The white-lipped snake is a forty-five-minute snake, which is almost double the amount of time you would have to make your peace if you were bitten by one of the other two.

We’ve heard they don’t really want anything to do with us, so we tried being loud and obvious. It was completely unbothered by this and after a long enough pause to let us know so, it slowly slithered right at me (for some reason, I was in front). This did not worry me, since I assumed it was just headed for the cover of the tangle of branches on the opposite side of the intervening log from us.

What was a little unnerving was when it emerged from the tangle to escape up the bank. It was going away from us, so we were in no danger, but it just appeared silently and slid up the log. There was no warning, no rustling, just a nice-looking place to step one second and a meter-long deadly snake the next. That’s when we realized they could be anywhere. They could be everywhere! Every rock, leaf and twig was the object of much suspicion on the way back to the kayak.

In the morning, we were up early for the short sail to Maria Island’s main harbor at Darlington. After a few tacks to make it out of Riedle Bay, we sailed the rest of the way on a beam reach. We were close enough to enjoy detailed views of the island’s amazing geography, which dates all of the way back to when it was a polar part of Gondwanaland. Several eroded sections of the multi-colored sandstone opened up into big caves where crashing waves exploded into spray, sending a boom that arrived to our ears half a second later. We finished that leg with a close pass under the Fossil Cliffs. They are not as impressive as the ones behind us, but those are not accessible on foot. These were topped by brightly colored specks who would occasionally take pictures of us as we sailed below.

Darlington is not a town there, per se, but instead a park ranger’s office, a campground and bare bones backpacker accommodation in the old convict cells. The ferry from Triabunna lands there and as such, it is the starting point for most who explore the island. {Maryanne: I had been expecitedly expecting a nice tea-shop in the grounds, since the maps clearly showed a building called "The Coffee Palace", however when we arrived we found a it was a museum dedicated to feeding of the past visitors. You could even sit at tables piled with food from different eras of the island... So close!}.

We had originally planned our arrival day to be a sailing day, with the next day set aside for hiking, but a closer study of the tide chart and the weather revealed that it would be better for us to split up our three planned hikes into two days.

Our first was a hike across the grassy, rolling hills back to Fossil Cliffs. There, we got a closer look at what we had sailed by earlier. Now we were two of the picture-taking specks. About 290 million years ago, a mass extinction event caused many of the bivalves (clams, scallops and such) to fall to the seabed, where they eventually became fossilized for posterity. There were some places where almost the entire stone layer was made up of petrified shells. It’s not as exciting as finding big dinosaur bones, but it is still an important data point for understanding the region’s past.

Fossil Cliffs

Wombats

We doubled up our Fossil Cliffs loop hike with another up to Darlington’s water source, a reservoir built by convicts, then it was a nice meander through forest back to Darlington. Happy that our day’s mileage had reached the respectable range, we were heading back to the beach when we spotted some wombats.

Every time I see one, I can’t get over how impossibly cute they are. Their scientific name, vombatus ursinus gives a clue to this. Ursidae is the family bears occupy. Bears are, of course, killing machines, but on the surface, they look cute and fluffy. That’s why Teddy Roosevelt’s stuffed bears became ubiquitous children’s cuddle toys, the Teddy Bear. Wombats are little, vegetarian, Teddy Bear-sized bears that spend their days going around being adorable.

The one’s we found seemed pretty accustomed to humans and would basically go on with their grazing without any regard to us, so long as we kept low and more than arm’s length away. Thus, our short trip to the dinghy got waylaid by a couple of happy hours of sitting next to them on the grass while they slowly made their way by, keeping it trimmed to an even length.

At the next morning’s low tide, we set off to do the relatively short loop to the Painted Cliffs, a particularly nice section of sandstone most easily accessed at low water. We took the long way there via the ruins of the Oast House, where hops were dried when it was a farm. The best part of that trail came a little further on where we found lots of cute little Padrmelons surprised by the day’s first humans. That’s the real unsung attraction of that seldom-used trail. I decided they should call that section the Pademelon Paddock.

Painted Cliffs

We saw no cute wombats on the way home that morning, but we did encounter a family with a little girl about three years old who boasted to Maryanne that her sandwich was Vegemite. Holy Hell! You can’t do that to a kid! I’m a grown man and I’m traumatized by just the smell of the stuff.

General views from our time exploring the trails around Darlington