Freycinet Peninsula Circuit, to Cooks Corner
Trip Start
Jan 19, 2006
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13
20
Trip End
Feb 23, 2006
Freycinet National Park, Tasmania,
Australia
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
We were up fairly early as we had decided to do the Freycinet Peninsula circuit in reverse, with a harder day of more elevation first. We drove the car to the parking area at Wineglass Bay, and had extra water containers that we filled there as well. There was little water in the form of creeks along the hike, and the one hut that collected rainwater was not guaranteed to have water in its tank because of the recent dry weather. So in addition to our 4L MSR water bags that we always carry (although we usually only carry 2L in the bags at a time and pump water at creeks as needed) we also each carried a 1.5L plastic bottle. The day was a bit overcast as we started the trail, which was also the start of a dayhike to the Wineglass Lookout. Feeling quite energetic after a few days off we scurried along the trail with our large packs, passing day hikers up to the lookout. The rocks were quite different, being massive boulders and not dolerite as the rocks were on the Overland Track. The view of Wineglass Bay at the lookout was nice, but off we ran towards Wineglass beach, which is regarded by many as being one of the top 10 beaches in the world. As we approached the beach we kept an eye our for tiny hooded plovers and pied oystercatches, which nest on the beach. The beach was gorgeous!!! Pure white fine sand, with aquamarine blue water, and we were the first to walk on the shore that morning.
01) Sunrise on the beach...
We grinned to each other and enjoyed the scenery around us. Seagulls and crested terns flew and walked around us along the beach, trying to catch some breakfast! We saw a largish boat anchored in the cove of the beach, and were amazed to see a Canadian flag on it; some other Canadians were also on a grand adventure! The sun started to peek through the clouds as we walked along the beach. As we climbed back into the trees we realized we were the Wineglass Bay camping spot, with 3 tents set up and sleepy heads poking out! We started climbing up the Hazard Saddle towards Mt. Graham, walking among quartz and granite boulders and grasses through the trees. The clouds lessened and more blue sky and hot sun poked through, making the views back towards Wineglass beach look spectacular! We crossed small Graham creek, just a trickle of water, glad we were carrying extra! We saw lots of little skinks (like salamanders), but different from the ones on the Overland Trail, and thankfully didn't see any snakes! We continued a solid climb up for the next couple of hours (about 600m elevation gain) up to Mt. Graham. We were relieved that there were no marsh flies around; we had enough of them on the Overland Track. We crossed a buttongrass moorland for a bit before Mt. Graham, and then had to actually descend a bit to reach the pass and junction up to Mt. Freycinet.We dropped our packs at the junction and ran up Mt. Freycinet. We were quite high already at the pass so we were at the top in about 30min. We had a panoramic view as we sat on the huge granite boulders; we could look back (north) at Wineglass Beach as well as the west Promise Bay, and we could look south to see Schouten Island and the Tasman sea off to the east! We ran back down to the junction and make peanut butter and honey sandwiches! Continued down to east Freycinet Saddle through rainforest and varied woodland, we could see Cooks Corner and the beach but it seemed to take forever to get there (we were tired!). Finally at the north end of the beach, another spectacular white sand beach! We hiked for about 20min along the beach to reach the tenting area and found a great spot on a low bluff overlooking the beach. We couldn't really clean up much as water was scarce with no creeks nearby, so we just collected some rainwater at old Cook Hut (stone section built 1859) from the collection bin (which runs off the roof and collects via the gutters). We filtered the water and made a great meal overlooking the beach into Oyster Bay. The wallabies were around and kept hopping through our tenting area. We had some Kahlua Especiale and drifted off to sleep with the waves crashing nearby.
