Mission #5: Freycinet

After a drive to the east coast, it suddenly dawned on us that this holiday was going too fast. Ten days in Tasmania is too long, we were told – but actually, it wasn’t long enough. This is a bit of a long post, so click these headings to jump to:

– Great Oyster Bay
– Wineglass Bay Lookout
– Wineglass Bay Beach
– Freycinet Marine Farm
– The Pondering Frog

We skipped Bay of Fires and went straight to Freycinet to stay the night. When we reached the national park the next morning, there was a large information centre with staff advising what suitable short walks we could take.

We took a brief stroll from the information centre to Great Oyster Bay, which wasn’t an amazing beach, but had some fantastic, rocky landscape views.

It’s a nice short walk, and with less people taking this route, the area was peaceful and perfect for photos. Next up was the Wineglass Bay Lookout, so we had to drive to another carpark.

Signage was helpful in indicating where you could park campervans, and with Wineglass rated as one of the top beaches, this area was extremely busy.

The walk is quite uphill and people may not tell you, but Tassie weather can be very similar, if not worse than Melbourne. It was cloudy and humid, and we were constantly attacked by mozzies on the way up.

You have to accept that sightseeing will not always be as picture perfect as the views you see on the Tasmania Instagram. On this day, Wineglass Bay was very cloudy and almost gloomy looking.

Of course this is no reason to not appreciate the beauty of Tasmania’s national parks. The con was the lookout was extremely busy with tourists, making it difficult to get the perfect photo. Cue tourist Mon:

After the lookout, we continued down to the beach itself. What we thought would be a slightly rocky trip down, turned out to be more difficult than expected. There were steps, but they were rocky, large, uneven steps going downhill. They were slippery with dirt/sand and rain felt imminent – we couldn’t even begin to imagine how much harder that would make it.

The trip down feels almost never-ending because of this. On the return trip, some people even asked us how far they had to go before they reached the beach – so it wasn’t just us who struggled. Also, let’s just say the walk back up to the lookout was probably the hardest part! Note: we aren’t the fittest people.

Despite this, we managed to get back to our campervan quicker than expected. Thus we made our way to try Freycinet Marine Farm.

The farm was very busy so there was a long wait for food. But it was easy to get a table as people were leaving and the food was fresh and worth the wait.

We had some flavoured oysters as well as scallops, with the salmon being our favourite. The scallops were a bit oily and not as flavoursome as the oysters though! We may have also bought a lobster for takeaway as a treat for Christmas dinner…

Freycinet Marine Farm is located at 1784 Coles Bay Road, Coles Bay. They are open everyday except Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year’s. See their menu here.

As we left to make our drive to Tribuna for our next caravan park, we drove by The Pondering Frog, and then u-turned to come back and get a coffee. I was tempted by the ice-creams but decided to get a berry smoothie instead.

Despite the shop being very quiet, the place was cute and homely, slightly obsessed with frogs, and their owner was full of suggestions of where to visit in Tasmania. Also it was surprisingly one of the best berry smoothies I’ve ever had, with a great balance between all ingredients!

The Pondering Frog is located at 16494 Tasman Highway, Bicheno. See their menu and contact details here.

Freycinet was a great area to explore despite the lack of sun. I would have liked to try the longer walk to Hazards Beach but it would have left less time to try food and to drive to our next location, so it’s just all about making compromises and cutting out what you need to in your trip.

Next Tassie post will be on Port Arthur – stay tuned!

Photos by myself and the.adventouriist.