One of the many things we were looking forward to on our Tasmania trip, were the hikes. It turns out though, that hiking – or tramping, as they call it down under – is not a spontaneous affair here, but something to be planned and pre-booked, at least for the Great Walks such as the Overland. Especially during the super high season that we are here. There are, however, a few smaller walks that you can do without pre-booking, and the 3 day Freycinet Peninsula is one of them. Thierry and I decide to take the opportunity to do what we said we would be doing much more than we have so far, namely to split up and do more one-on-one time with the kids. The boys will do the 3-day walk and Anjali and I will do day excursions and spend some quality girls time. That sorted, we move on to the logistics: where to rent the camping equipment. Turns out that there is literally NOT A SINGLE rental shop around. The only one to be found is in Hobart, which, needless to say, does not make any sense for us to have to drive back and forth for hours. In sharing this with the lovely ranger Fiona, she just chuckles and says that we would be better off to just buy the equipment at Anaconda (sounds cooler than Decathlon, don’t you think?) and donate it after. In line with the crazy consumption society we are in, this turns out to be good advice, and the boys excitedly organise their super 2 person tent, sleeping mats and – highlight – kangaroo and turtle sleeping bags. Anjali and I drop off the boys beneath a cloudy sky and off they go. We are to meet up on the morning of day 3 on the famous Wineglass Bay beach and walk back together.
Day 1 was apparently reasonably easy and they make it to the campsite just in time before a torrential downpour sets in. Fortunately, the sky is bright blue the next morning and they get to kick off the longest day of the three, which actually turns out to be not only long but also quite steep, which, with the super strong winds make some narrow passages quite perilous. They arrive at the Wineglass Bay campsite, well fatigued, but clearly still with some energy to spare as the boys delightedly discover that the permanent residents of the campsite are a colony of completely unafraid wallabies who quite determinedly go through everyone’s backpacks on a treasure hunt. Miraculously, Nilay manages to keep all his digits and extremities despite chasing the wallabies up and down the beach. Meanwhile, Anjali and I also picked a nice challenge, namely to hike up to Mount Amos. It’s only a 4km walk, but the 410m up are quite steep and only over slippery rocks. Our goal is to hit the top within an hour and so wescramble up the rocks without much of a break. We hit the summit at 57min, to discover an incredible view and almost get blown off our rocks. My one-legged photo poses are thus thwarted and instead we make friends with a lovely couple from Melbourne. Back in Bicheno, a sleepy fisher town on the coast with what turns out to be the most beautiful coastline, Anjali and I enjoy a lovely lunch of Pacific rock oysters, gummy shark fish & chips at The Gulch (the absolute BEST fish & chips) and a glass of Tassie Sauvignon Blanc followed by a late night outing to visit the local Blue Penguin population on Bicheno beach (super cute. They literally hug each other and chat with their partner about their day when they come home from hunting!) In other words, the perfect girls day.
The next morning we reunite with the (very dirty) boys for a lovely breakfast and make them discover the Bicheno blowhole which is quite impressive that morning before we head all the way North to the Bay of Fires.
Ah, the Bay of Fires. Our expectations were already high but this is even more beautiful than we imagined or saw in the pictures. The colors are breathtaking, everything looks as if it has been put into high fidelity: the sea is almost fluorescent with different hues of blue, the sand so powdery white and velvety soft, the humongous granite rocks covered in bright orange lichen…..we are in love. The added bonus thrown in: Saint Helens, where we’re staying, is the home of the legendary Lease 65 oyster farm. This is probably the point where I should say something about Pacific rock oysters. I only discovered my love for oysters a couple of years ago, during our visit of Cap Ferret. Before then I always thought oysters to mostly be briny chewy, but those oysters were simply delicious. Well, the Pacific oysters are really quite different. Not as briny, much bigger/meaty and almost sweet in taste. I would not say that I prefer them over Atlantic oysters, but I certainly love them at least equally, where Vyas, who is our big oyster lover in the family since discovering them on the American East coast, is categorically in the Atlantic oyster camp and looks upon the Pacific oysters with disdain. So, Pacific oysters are known to be a great source of Omega-3 fatty acids, very, very high in zinc and other minerals, and the nowadays hard to come by in natural foods Vit B12 and Vit D. Of course the quality of the oysters very much depends on the quality of the water they grow in so I suppose it is no surprise that these specific oysters, off the coast of the Bay of Fires, are as delicious as they are, you can almost taste how pure the water is. In a nutshell: from Eaglehawk Neck to the Freycinet peninsula, up to Bicheno and finally Binalong Bay and the Bay of Fires: the Tasmanian East coast is simply stunning.
