Freycinet NP / Coles Bay / Bicheno

Sunday July 14 to Monday July 15, 2013

From St Helens and the Bay of Fires we made our way to Coles Bay where Stephen had found a nice vacation rental for us to stay at for the next 2 nights. Home cooked meals, yay! The first night we had rainbow trout; the 2nd Stephen had eye fillet steak and I had oysters and mussels. Yum!

Monday morning we set off around 10am for the 4 hour Wineglass Bay / Hazards Beach Circuit hike in Freycinet NP. It threatened to rain for the first half of our hike, but never did more than spitting a little.

Upon finishing this hike we drove to Freycinet Marine Farm (it closes early in winter) to pick up those oysters and mussels previously mentioned, before going for a look-see to the Cape Tourville Lighthouse and pretty little Honeymoon Bay.

Wineglass Bay.
View from the Lighthouse with a glimpse of Wineglass Bay in the middle of the photo.
Honeymoon Bay.

Tuesday, 16 Julyth

This morning we backtracked a little to Bicheno to go to Natureworld to see the Tasmanian Devil.   Their extinction on mainland Australia is usually blamed on dingoes. On the island of Tasmania they were seen as a threat to livestock (which has since been ‘revised’) and they were hunted for fur. In 1941 the animal became officially protected. Since the late 1990s, devil facial tumour disease has drastically reduced the devil population and now threatens the survival of the species, which in 2008 was declared to be endangered. Programs are currently being undertaken by the Government of Tasmania to reduce the impact of the disease, including an initiative to build up a group of healthy devils in captivity, isolated from the disease.