Tasmania Days 4 and 5!

Day 4- Tuesday 20 January
We got up early and headed back to Sorrell and the main highway. We stopped for some coffee and batteries at Chicken Feed (think Bi-Way). Back on the road we headed north up the East coast with Wineglass Bay in Freycinet National Park as our destination (I dare you to google image search Wineglass Bay). We stopped often to take in the sights of the open ocean and other things like an old church with stunning stained glass windows and Kate’s Berry Farm (berries aren’t ready until February, boooo! but we sampled all her jams, yum yum mingledberry). We made it to Freycinet after a short stop in Swansea for more groceries and then Cole’s Bay for a late lunch. At the Freycinet visitors center we were happy to learn that there were campsites available at Wineglass Bay so the 3hour return hike would be separated by a nights sleep and totally worth it (thought we might have to make it in and out in an afternoon, yikes). Chelsie did a little dance of celebration in the car park after we found out about the sites. Before we set out on the hike in an overly friendly wallaby came to say hello in the car park. That guy had NO fear.
The first half of the hike was up hill/up mountain to the lookout over Wineglass Bay on the sunny side of the hill, so basically I was dripping sweat by the top. As soon as you crested the hill/mountain/whatever the temperature dropped a good 5degrees and a breeze came in from the ocean. We spent a little time at the lookout taking pics and of course my camera battery died at that point, luckily the other girls got some great shots.
The hike down was steep and somewhat difficult, it felt like doing stadiums, burning on the way up and shaky legs on the way down (PS I was carrying our heavy tent on my back as well as a couple bottles of beer, 1.5L of water, and my clothing). At the bottom we found out the campsites were at the other end of the bay, another 45mins away. Kate wanted to give up and camp there, but we forged on, and it ended up being the right thing to do because the beach only got nicer. The sand got whiter and finer and the shells got prettier! We saw dolphins in the water, a wallaby on the beach, and big jellyfish washed up on the beach! And it was a long walk on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world (voted 2nd best a few years back) how could it not be awesome? We had dinner and drank beers and tired to go in the water (much too cold!) and saw dolphins have a feeding frenzy on fish that would jump out of the water in hopes of escaping. Incredible. We met some other campers, they’d been crayfish (lobster) fishing earlier that day and offered us half of one, which Diva and Kate happily accepted. Another camper, a gal from France on a break year, had been camping there for a week and planned to stay a full month at Wineglass Bay, hiking out only for food and water, crazy! I started an obsession/addiction on Wineglass Bay that I couldn’t shake until we moved inland a few days later: collecting shells. Boy was it bad for a while there. Something also happened between Diva, Kate, and a penguin, but I'm not at liberty to reveal the details of their association.
Anyway, after the mozzies became unbearable around dusk we hung our food and garbage in a tree (in plastic bags only, that’s all we had, and from the same rope since we only had a short piece that I'd found there. Recipe for disaster basically) about 10m away from our tent and went to bed. A few hours later we were all awoken from something, wild animals, Tasmanian Devils we think, eating our garbage and trying to get into our food. Diva and Chelsie both kind of cried out “There’s something outside!” at points, but I was more annoyed and all I wanted was for them to eat our food and go away so I could sleep. It went on all night and kept me up for most of it. [Byron Bay Edit: Kate’s and Diva's co-workers, both from Tassie, say it was probably Possums, not devils. But I’m gonna say they were devils because possums are lame and so what if Tassie devils can’t climb trees and don’t make that grunting noise.]

Day 5- Wednesday 21 January
When we woke up in the morning I was expecting a raccoon-like mess from the Tassie Devils, but it really wasn’t bad at all. They’d totally cleaned out the lobster shell and only got into our loaf of bread and a banana. We packed up our stuff (after cleaning up the garbage of course) and headed out for our 1.5hour hike to the car park. It was 7:25am when we set out and we easily did the entire hike in less than an hour. It felt good to start the day with vigorous exercise.
Back on the road and feeling dirty we grabbed coffees in Cole’s Bay and then stopped at Friendly Beaches (also in Freycinet National Park) for a quick swim and fun with kelp! Next stop was Bicheno for a look in their great tide pools/ a very educational ‘field trip’ lead by marine scientist Chelsie! My shell obsession reached new, somewhat alarming, heights.
We stopped at Douglas-Apsley National Park next for a short walk down to a freshwater “water hole,” of course none of us brought our swimsuits.
Next stop was Lagoons Beach because as we went further north the beaches and landscape only got more beautiful and we just had to stop and take it in. Chels and Diva frolicked in the surf, Kate tried to protect herself from the sun, and I collected shells (Don’t worry, I didn’t keep all the shells I collected, I only kept a few at each place, and almost all of them had holes in them from snails boring through the shell and then sucking out and eating the mullosk inside, hence why they were on the beach in the first place. I managed to get a nice little collection at every beach we stopped at and then selected a few to keep).
St Helen’s was next, a town full of weirdos, for a late lunch and groceries for dinner. Then we were on to Binalong Bay, the gateway to Bay of Fires (also once voted 2nd Best Beach in the World a few years ago), for info on free camping and snorkeling. We hit up the Glutch for a quick snorkel, too cold for me, but great shells! We set off up Bay of Fires to find the best campsite, it was crowded compared to Wineglass Bay, but after doubling back we found a sooty site right on the beach (Cosy Corner South), possibly the most beautiful beach I’ve ever been on: white sands, beautiful rock outcroppings, and such a variety of blues in the water it was jaw-dropping gorgeous! Only problem was that the temperature of the water was still freeeezing! We set up camp and drank wine on the beach and took it all in. When the mozzies got bad we moved into the tent and watched the stars through the open fly. The ground kept us warm that night since it was sand and had been baking in the hot sun all day- a geothermal wonder!

(Sorry, no pics with this post, our internet is NOT cooperating today, grrrr)