Freycinet

So instead of three days high in the South West wilderness of Tasmania, we ended up in the picturesque, but populated Freycinet Peninsula. This area has experience tremendous gowth in the past few years, and sees a lot of tourist traffic. Fortunately, the National Parks seem to be regulated the flow reasonably well, and the local community has adopted a environmental mindset, eg by banning plastic bags from all their shops.

Dave piked, due to a dodgie knee, but Dan and I headed off, initially powering past the lumberers, despite our overnight packs. The view was pretty speccie, even though the weather was overcast. After some posing for the obligatory photos, we headed off along the beach. Sand obviously makes beach walking hard, but at least you don't have any hills to climb.

Away from the happy snappers, we enjoyed the trek up to Mt Freycinet, the highest point on the peninsula. The wind and slight elevation made it a bit cooler, but once we were out of the wind, headed towards our campsite, things became quite pleasant.

Our destination for the night, a very pleasant site by the beach, was much more populated than I expected. There were about 5 parties slung out by the beach, most of them probably on a 3 or 4 day walk.

That night, we made our aquaintance with some yanks from the site next to ours, who were all studying at Hobart Uni. And whilst on the beach, we copied the yoga moves of some girls from Melbourne. The late sunset meant we could enjoy some seaweed skipping
(!), rock throwing (I knackered Harry the Happy Hiker) and some Algae Glowing.

Algae Glowing

After dark, jump up and down right at the high point of an incoming wave (wait til the water subsides before you jump). Just after you jump, luminescant algae glow a bluey green colour, concentrated at the high water point on the sand. If you jump along the beach, you can see where the last wave rolled up to. Entertainment value 6.3/10.

Once we had enough of the beach, we returned to camp (all of 10m from the beach) for some dessert (dessert is spelt with 2 s's, as you always have a double helping of dessert), just in the knick of time. Possums had started to come out, and these ones were well and truly used to humans. The first one scared my by sneaking up between Dan and myself, despite being only 1m apart. She had her baby on her back, and Dan decided to pluck it of her back. The mother scampered away, whilst the baby dangled, limbs flagging wildy, until Dan dropped it.

We spent the next little while shoring up our food supplies, making them possum proof. Later, I heard about possums in this area unzipping tents and packs so they could gorge on some chocolate. Crafty little bastards.

The next morning, food intact, we set off along the coast. The seaside track was enjoyable walking, probably due to the fantastic weather. A pod of dolphins swam past, and we entered for a dip too.

The day was not very strenuous, which suited our tiring bodies perfectly. We made it back around lunch time, met up with Dave, and headed back to Hobart for our flight back home.