On Walkabout At: Wineglass Bay, Tasmania

Prior Posting: Bicheno’s Natureworld

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One of the top things we wanted to see in Tasmania is the famous Wineglass Bay located on the beautiful Freycinet Peninsula.

The Freycinet Peninsula is located on the east coast of Tasmania and is one of the major tourist attractions on the island.  The peninsula gets its name from the French navigator Louis de Freycinet who explored Western Australia the early 1800’s, but likely never saw Wineglass Bay.  The bay was given its name by another French navigator who explored the bay in honor of Freycinet.  There was actually a race back then between the French and the English to explore and colonize the lands of Australia and New Zealand.  Obviously judging by the English heritage of both Australia and New Zealand today, the British won this race to colonize these new lands.  The peninsula may bare a French name, but it is as Australian as it gets as the famous Wineglass Bay on this peninsula is featured in many Australian tourism brochures and programs:

Unfortunately the day of our visit wasn’t all that beautiful because of the wet and dreary weather that had rolled in the night before making visiting the park less than ideal.  We had one day scheduled to visit the park so we decided to make the most of it despite the weather.

First of all we spent some time strolling along the nice beaches of the peninsula that have a few people living in modest homes that have incredile views range of mountains known simply as The Hazards:

After spending some time walking around the beach we decided that despite the rainy weather that we would go ahead and climb up the steep mountain that takes visitors to a viewpoint that overlooks Wineglass Bay:

On the way up the mountain my wife and I had a chance to spot this wallaby that was hanging out in the bush to the right of the trail:

Usually wildlife like this run off when they see people, but we could tell this wallaby was used to seeing people and just kept his distance and watched us go by.  It took about an hour to get up to the viewpoint and as we suspected there wasn’t much to see except clouds and more rain.  So we hung out at the viewpoint and ate our packed lunch for about an hour and finally a break in the clouds occurred where I was at least able to take this picture of Wineglass Bay:

I know, it isn’t much of a picture, but it was better than nothing.  For those who have never seen the classic shots of Wineglass Bay this is how it looks during a nice weather day:

Here is an aerial view of the bay:

I think it is pretty self explanatory why it is called Wineglass Bay.  Just beautiful.  With my one picture in hand of the bay, my wife and I hurried down the mountain while the rain continued to fall.  We decided to take in one more site on the peninsula before heading on out.  We took a short walk to take in some of the ocean views from the the Cape Tourville Lighthouse:

Unlike other lighthouses in Australia that are old and historic, this lighthouse is fairly new with it being constructed in 1971.  However, it is the ocean views from the lighthouse that visitors really come to see:

Even on a rainy cloudy day like this, the views of the ocean hitting the rocky slopes of the Freycinet Peninsula is stunning.  Something else that is easily visible is the granite rocks that have turned a fiery red due to their proximity to the ocean:

The rain really spoiled our visit to the Freycinet Peninsula, but all in all we still had a good time and the next time we visit Tasmania we will definitely check this place out again, but hopefully the weather is a bit better next time.

Next Posting: Port Arthur, Tasmania