26th February 2008, East Coast, Tasmania, Australia
Breakfast at McDonalds was followed by a trip on the East Coast Trail. First to Swansea and the Freycinet Peninsula. We motored along the east coast and round the loop to the south facing peninsula around Oyster Bay. We stopped at the National Park Office and purchased our park ticket. We also did a short walk to Richardsons Beach before returning to the car and driving into the park to the Wineglass Bay Car Park. From there we did the 2 & half hour return walk to the Wineglass Bay Lookout (see pics). This is regarded as the most beautiful beach in Tasmania and is totally undeveloped - it was stunning. We then drove to the Cape Torville car park and walked around the lighthouse where we had good views of Friendly Beach Rocks.
We left the park and drove north to Becheno, a small holiday resort which D said reminded him of Wales in the 1950s. It was such a throwback that the cafe where we had lunch closed at 3 pm. After lunch we took a walk on the white sand beach (see pics) before returning to the car. We made a brief stop at another wildlife part where, at last, we were able to find some Tasmanian Devil T-Shirts.
We then drove past the Douglas Apsley National Park and up over the Elephant Pass where we supposed to have fantastic views - but being Tasmanian the clouds came in again and it started to rain (visibility 0). However, after descending the pass into the heart of the east midlands (which was more like a throwback to the 1920's) the weather cleared and we drove on to join the main Midland Highway from Launceston to Hobart and the Heritage Trail.
First stop was Campbell Town where a fantastic brick bridge (see pic) was built by convicts. Here was also the best preserved example of colonial architecture in Oz but we were not too impressed - it is a pub. We took a short diversion off the road to Hobart to a small town called Ross which we thought was more interesting with fine examples of 19th century architecture including a post office and the original town hall. Unfortunately, being Tasmania everything was closed as it was past 5 pm.
We drove back to 7 Mile Beach via Richmond (another fine town like Ross) but had no time to stop. We then had dinner at a local holiday centre joining which was only about 3 minutes from our rented house. We thoroughly enjoyed Tas and want to go back again but would follow the advice of our Geevfeston Hostess who told us the weather was better in December.
