Wednesday 21st February
The next stop on our Tasmanian itinerary was Freycinet National Park which is located a bit further down the coast from Bicheno and our accommodation for the next two nights was at Freycinet Lodge.
The drive down from Bicheno to the Coles Bay Area only took 30 minutes but it was drizzling when we arrived so we didn’t spend long there at all. We decided to head onto the Visitor Information Centre, to get some information about walks around the Freycinet National Park, but that didn’t take long either so we turned up very early for check-in at the Lodge, at around 11:30 when check-in was scheduled for 2 pm. Our cabin wasn’t ready, no surprise there, so we headed down to the Lodge’s Richardson‘s Bistro to have lunch whilst we waited for our room key.
Freycinet Lodge is most impressive and the restaurant, bar and bistro areas all offer quite spectacular views out across Coles Bay and Richardsons Beach. The Lodge architects / designers had made the most of the view for their guests with tiered seating inside the restaurant area and an enormously long outdoor bar-style seating area that wraps all the way along the deck around the outside of the main building. Almost every seat inside the restaurant, bar and lounge area enjoys a great water view which is still the most amazing blue turquoise that doesn’t fully translate in the photos.
We got into our cabin just after 1 pm and found it to be a lovely large and most comfortable space with a balcony and a well stocked mini bar that was apparently ‘free’. That’s always a clear sign that you are paying way too much for the room rate but the psychology worked on Mark. He was excited to see the fridge stocked with a number of beers to his taste. We didn’t dwell in our room too long though as we had three walks we wanted to achieve today whilst it wasn’t as hot, there was still some protective cloud cover as there was a bit of a breeze as well. The sun was trying to break through and it is really very hot when its succeeds. We had thought we’d do these three walks tomorrow afternoon but the forecast for tomorrow was for a hot day with a max near 31o degrees and so we didn’t want to be out in that sun if we could avoid it.
Access to all three walks was just a short drive from the Lodge with the first being the walk to Wineglass Bay lookout, a 30 min out and 30 min back walk, The Cape Tourville Lighthouse walk was just a short 20 min loop walk out around the Lighthouse and then the Sleepy Bay walk that was about 20 min out and 20 min back. The scenery along the way of these walks was most impressive so there are loads of photos again I’m afraid.
I was rather exhausted after these walks as the Wineglass Bay and Sleepy Bay walks involved a lot of uphill and down dale. We got back to our room just before 5 pm and Mark was very excited to grab a beer from the minibar and retire to the deck. This was good timing as we had an hour and half to rest up before our 6.30 pm dinner booking at the Lodge. The restaurant was packed with grey nomads like ourselves but our meals were lovely and the view was fantastic. NB: I would suggest you ask for either one of these 7 tables when dining at the Freycinet Lodge restaurant as these offer the best view: table 15 – 21.
We’d had a very full and enjoyable day. Tomorrow we have a 4hr cruise out to Wineglass Bay; I hope we don’t end up like the SS Minow!
Thursday 22nd February
It was another lovely morning so Mark started it off with a bike ride whilst I did some yoga. We had a cruise out to Wineglass Bay that was going to take up most of the day but the itinerary for this outing had to be modified. The prevailing winds are apparently normally from the south west, but the northerly direction today meant that we couldn’t get around to wineglass Bay, so we took another route and managed to get out to Isle des Phoques which actually translates to Isle of seals, because there apparently is a large colony of about 800 fur seals on this tiny little rock formation. There were indeed large clusters of seals and they were very entertaining but the main takeaway for me was just how bad they smell. There was an awful stench and I had to confirm with one of our lovely attendants whether this was coming from the seal colony or from the toilet that I was standing next to. She did confirm that it was coming from the seal colony.
It was a great outing as we encountered an abundance of wild life including dolphins, an few eagles and quite a few albatross. The skipper commented, quite a few times, that this was quite rare so we seemed to be in luck. The geology along the way was quite spectacular as well.
We sat for lunch with two couples from Victoria. The meal was pleasant but no sooner had we sat down when the man beside me started bleating about the trauma they had suffered and continue to suffer, due to ‘Dictator Dan’ and I knew then that further conversation was going to be very stilted. In fact, I barely said anything and just nodded occasionally so that was a bit disappointing but at least the view was pretty.
The boat returned to the Coles Bay jetty around 2.30 pm and we headed back to the Lodge. It had been a most pleasant day but I was very glad we had cancelled the Maria Island boat trip we had scheduled for tomorrow. The Maria cruise was another that had to be modified due to the weather and so we decided to cancel and I’m very pleased we did as the modified Maria Island trip would’ve been almost the same as the one we had today. This now means that we will have a much more leisurely journey when we depart the Freycinet coast and head south on our way down towards Hobart. Our original plan had us waking at 5 am for a 6 am departure to arrive at the Marina for 7.30 am. In hindsight, this was a poorly planned part of our itinerary but circumstances, being the weather, had colluded to work in our favor.
We didn’t spend too much time resting up in the lodge because it was such a beautiful day so we decided to go and have a walk along Richardsons beach and I was going to have a swim. There is a short track down to the beach from the lodge which deposits you at one end of the beach. We both walked up to the other end where I turned back to head for my swim but Mark ventured on a bit further. The water was such a beautiful turquoise blue that I couldn’t understand anyone not wanting to dive straight in but here I was, swimming all alone. I wasn’t game to go out too far because on my return walk I chatted to a nice young man who had caught some rather large salmon. I happened to ask him if he thought, given the large amount of salmon in the water whether there might be some sharks, and he replied yes, of course there are. So it was just a waist deep dip for me.
We didn’t venture back out of the cabin again until dinner time, although neither of us were very hungry given we had enjoyed the Hotel breakfast and a substantial lunch on the boat, but it did get us out of the room so we persisted. We shared a main dish with some sides, which was lovely, and we once again watched a most magnificent sunset so apologies in advance for all the sunset photos.
We had enjoyed our 2 night stay at Freycinet Lodge and, despite the enormous cost, we wished we had planned at least one more night here as there is quite a lot to do and see in the surrounding area. Mark actually thinks he would suggest folk ditch any thoughts of staying at Bicheno and simply spend more time in this Freycinet / Coles Bay region, so, that is another angle.
