Tasmania! Freycinet National Park…

We always try to plan our landfall for daylight hours but sometimes, somehow, we find ourselves edging along a coastline and pushing hard towards our destination as a low sun illuminates the horizon and precious daylight melts into unfriendly blackness….. After a very cruisy overnight sail down from Flinders Island, the wind jacked just as we approached Wineglass Bay on Tasmania’s east coast. We went from chilled sailing conditions to 35 knots and approaching high cliffs with very little visibility…I didn’t like it.

We came into the wind to drop sails just outside the entrance to Wineglass. Getting as close as we dared hoping for some protection freaked me out. The fast approaching black escarpment loomed as the wind whipped and snarled.

“Let’s go back out to sea until the morning” I suggested. I couldn’t see us getting close (shallow) enough to anchor in the conditions and I was concerned about get pushed into the rocks at the base of the rock-wall. Getting into Wineglass Bay itself was out of the question. It is not an unreasonably narrow entrance but from our position (north of the pass) in the wind and murky light, it looked near-on impossible! After zooming in on the chart, and quickly dismissing the idea of a night at sea heaving to, Russ proposed an attempt to nudge into Sleepy Bay a little further north.  It would require squeezing close in and, honestly, to me it didn’t look as if we would find a tenable anchorage; but it was worth a shot. And it worked! Kai was in the saloon monitoring the radar pings, Russ had the wheel with eyes on the depth sounder and Jaiya and I were on the bows spotlighting the land-mass. We hit the right anchoring spot first time and it was surprisingly calm tucked out of reach from the bellowing north-easterly. Heaven was cooking and tucking into a hot meal and crawling into our bunks! As you would expect, we slept soundly in Sleepy Bay….  

Above; approaching east coast Tassie at sunset.

The following morning we popped into beautiful Wineglass Bay in the Freycinet National Park…

The wind was still blowing so we cuddled up to the southern headland with a couple of local fishing and sailing boats. Wineglass is an iconic bay; a glistening crescent of white sand flanked by the pink granite mountain range known as the Hazards. It has a rich history of aboriginal occupation and later, European sealers, miners and whalers carved out a living on the Frecinet Peninsula and it’s surrounding waters….

I assumed that the shimmering, sand-rimmed bay and it’s narrow entrance gave Wineglass Bay it’s name, however, a Hobart local added a not so romantic twist. The wineglass held red wine you see- at the peak of the whaling in the 1820’s and 30’s, the bay was often filled with blood and putrid blubber from the slaughter of thousands of Southern Right Whales. During my pre-coffee morning swim (ten times around the boat) I saw a curious structure underneath Tika’s hulls. It took me a few laps before I recognised the form of a set of whale ribs….

Not long after the anchor hit the sandy bottom of Wineglass Bay, we dusted off our hiking boots and went exploring. 3 little peaks in 3 days were conquered;  Mt Graham (570m), Mt Amos (484m) and Mt Bear (299m) at nearby Schouten Passage.

Above; the view of the bay, Mt Amos and Mt Dove from Mt Graham.

The track notes warning’s were very serious. Our cocky kids laughed at the conservative signage and skipped up and down the hill before lunch.

Above; at the top of Mt Amos with a tiny Tika in the bay below.

Clear water, powdery sand and cool cloud formations looking east out of the glass’s stem to the Tasman sea.

Above left; Kai and Jaiya with Mt Dove behind. Kai was desperate to climb Dove and even mapped out a path (below) but his spoil-sport parents thwarted his mountaineering spirit this time around… Securing the dinghy at the rocky base looked super dodgy and the track notes were particularly vague….. I still don’t think he has forgiven us.

Above; view of Mt Graham from the trek up Mt Amos.

Above; love this shot that encapsulates the layers that makes up Tasmainia’s rich and diverse landscape; celedon blue water, blinding white sand, rocky escarpment, crust, scrub, gnarled roots, deep, dense green eucalypt forest, towering mountain and a southern, powder blue, cloud-textured sky….

We slid through the passage between the mainland and Schouten Island so we could tramp up Bear hill on Schouten Island….

The Tasmanians we met made us laugh and we couldn’t help but compare them to the kiwis. New Zealanders have tourism down to a fine art and there is a fairly consistent attitude; “yeh bro…we love our country and we want you to love it too….” Tasmanians are a little different. Much of the island is inaccessible by car and it is possible to get away from the crowds by hiking and boating away from the townships. By managing the low altitude weather by sea or veering off the main hiking trails, the silence and vastness of the Tasmanian wilderness awaits. The locals we met were very clear and consistent in their message that Tassie is exactly the way they like it and they have no aspirations to encourage tourists and travellers “Tell all your friends it’s terrible here- awful. Not worth the visit. Cold. Wet. Unfriendly and certainly not worth crossing the Bass Strait for….” We met a group of families camping at the bottom of Bear hill and, after we promised to tell our friends how gross Tasmania is, they shared their dinner, wine and camp chairs with us.

Views from Mt Bear looking north across Schouten Pass.

Standing on top of the Bear Hill…It was a quick and easy, albeit steep climb with fabulous views.

A 1.5 minute snippet of Freycinet National Park…

Next Post; Tasmanian Devils by Jaiya 

This entry was posted in The Sail.