Day 46 / 2015 - Port Arthur to Bicheno

 Leaving Sorell we headed North up the east coast towards the much talked about Bay of Fires near St Helens. Along the way we will be passing through Freyceinet National Park to check out the other much talked about attraction Wine Glass Bay.

The road wound through a typical Tasmanian country side with lots of hills and narrow roads to navigate. Some of the roads are barely wide enough for two cars with a rock face one side and a steep cliff off the other and this being one of the major highways. We hadn't planned to stop anywhere in particular but we had seen the town Triabunna listed in Wikicamps as a highly recomended free camp opposite the pub in the middle of town. As with all these free camps it is best to stop early as they tend to fill up quickly during the day if they are not already full. There was also a camp behind the pub which had a number of vans already there we went for the area across the road at the time we pulled in there was only one other van. We like the camps near towns generally you have access to toilets and fresh drinking water as well as shops for supplies.

After setting up we decided to explore the town not there was much to explore a pub, garage, post office and a supermarket. Anne did find this extraordinary Christmas shop opposite the takeaway store which just about have every kind of Christmas decoration you could wish for. We spent about half an hour just looking around.

Returning to the van we had just settled down with a cuppa when there was a knock at the door. A local fisherman had setup a boat tour and was looking for business. He offered a half day tour including fishing and sightseeing just off Maria Island for $90.00 each which seemed like a good deal to us as some of the other boat tours to Maria Island was around $190.00 each. Accepting we agreed to meet him at the boat harbour (which was just accross the road) around 8:30 tomorrow morning and hopefully the weather will be kind to us.

We met at the due time of 8:30 and found another 3 couples had also taking his offer which makes it worthwhile for him to go out. Sailing out into the bay it was quite foggy and overcast we could nearly see the shoreline as we glided past. We steamed towards Maria island which our skipper said had good fishing grounds. He expected us to catch what he called sandy flathead. Arriving at the spot he passed out the handlines and we proceeded to lower them into the water. No sooner than the Sinkers hit the bottom we were getting strikes.

It wasn't long before we had our quotas after which our skipper kindly gutted and filleted for us. Being as he describe an ex professional flathead fisherman it didn't take him long to fillet all the fish. We then moved over to near Maria Island where we could view the coastline including the much touted painted cliffs. After a cuppa and muffin we then steamed back to Triabunna harbour just as the sky began to clear up. It was a nice day out and something different to do.

We ended up staying at Triabanna for another 3 nights before reluctantly moving on to the next town Bicheno. Arriving at Bicheno we decided we could set camp here and do a day return trip to look at Wineglass bay as well as other attractions around town and the surrounding area. Another reason was I didn't relish the idea of dragging the van over more mountains than I needed to. Believe it or not but the road out to Wineglass bay was the flattest we had encounter in all of Tasmania go figure. 

The caravan park we chose was a little tight to get into but we managed after doing a couple of 60 point turns. After setting up we walked into town to see what local attractions were available. There were a number of walks around the coastline as well a lookouts on top of hills overlooking  the bay and town. We also spied a Penguin tour as well as the night Devil viewing. 

The penguin tour was held in the evening where a bus picked us up and took us out to a location a few kilometres up the coast. It's always debatable whether these tours are worth while or not as the beach the Penguins come up is public with nothing to stop you from walking in and looking for yourself. But as always unless you are knowledgable about these things and where to look sometimes it is just easier to have a guide to take you there as well  as give you some usefull information some of it learned by local experience. The Penguins were quite cute and the guide showed us where they nest some even had young chicks still in them. He gave some information about their habits and some stats on there life cycles. He also mention not to put your hands to close (in our group everyone listened) as their beaks are sharp and can shread you fingers to the bone if provoked. There were lots of people on the tour making it a little difficult to see at times as well as hear what the guide was saying but it was still worth the money.

The night Devil feeding was a bit more interesting the bus picked us up and added a bit of mystique by telling us they were taking us to a secret location to watch wild Devils feeding. The guide was really animated and gave his talks with much enthusiasm and kept referring to us as Ladies and Gentlemen (better than "hey you lot..."). The place we ended up at is an area set aside for breeding Devils with as least amount of human contact as possible enabling them to be released back into the wild. The guide told us each Devil only gets about 10 minutes of human contact each year which is when the vet gives them a checkover. We were led into a blind where we could view the Devils feeding on a wallaby carcass listening to them grunt and carry on as they fed. There were about a dozen of them feeding all together.

The guides, who are actually science staff, continued to describe what was happening and what all the grunts and acts of aggressions really meant. In Devil community there is no hierarchy or social structure as with dogs they are a solitude animal but unusually for animals that live alone they will allow others to feed with them up to a point. It was really interesting to watch and listen to the enthusiastic commentary then finishing the evening off with a sample of local wine and cheeses how very civilised I thought. We found out these guides are volunteers and all money raised from the tours are poured back into Devil research.

Next day we drove the ten kilometres back to the turnoff to Freycinet National Park and onto the visitors centre. We purchased an 8 week park pass for $60 which gives you unlimited entry into Tasmanian national parks for up to 8 weeks. We could have purchased one on the boat over but since we would be in Tassie for 12 weeks at the time wern't sure when we would be in our first park and didn't want it to expire before we had been to all the parks we wanted to see. As long as you visit 3 or more parks it was cost effective.

Driving to the carpark, where most walks start from, we left the car and proceeded up the walking trail towards Wineglass Bay lookout. The climb took a moderate effort but once you reached the top the view was spectacular. We thought about walking down to the beach of the bay but because we have seen so many spectacular beaches over our time it probably wouldn't be much different at ground level from a beach back home. The view across the bay was dramatic with the mountains rising up almost from the beach at the far end of the bay well worth the walk up. One thing about Tasmania is the landscape is alway beautiful and eye catching to look at pity about the weather.

We had been making picnic lunches to help with the costs and being able to have lunch where we wanted to. We stopped at a small bay called Honeymoon beach and found a nice spot on the rocks. The only other people we could see were a couple of swimmers about 400 metres away very secluded. Well that only lasted about 5 minutes as people started coming down in their droves must have been a tour group... there goes the serenity.