Dean's Travels

Day 20 - 13th October

Eddystone Lighthouse to Coles Bay (Freycinet National Park)

Distance Travelled - 223 km

After a slightly interrupted night due to high winds and unaccustomed noises on the building, I woke at about 6.15 am. It was a bit after sunrise which surprised me a little. With 2 decent sized windows in the building and no fly on the tent I thought I would be woken earlier by the light but it was not to be.

I got up and went for a walk with the camera to see what was about. The lighthouse didn't look too bad in the morning light so I took a few shots and then went back to the boat ramp and beach area where I spent some time taking some shots in the morning light. After wandering for a bit I had breakfast and dried the tent and sleeping bag a little while I read for a bit and then headed off towards Freycinet National Park. I plugged the address into the GPS and was somewhat surprised that it calculated the distance as 167 km (that I can cope with) but estimated the travel time as 6 hours and 6 minutes!

I drove off wondering how it could possibly come up with that time frame. The drive today was quite spectacular in some parts down to ok in others. I made a slight detour from the suggested course and called into some of the inlets along the Bay of Fires. This coastline was very pretty with nice looking blue water and granite boulders/rocks along many parts of the beach. Many of the granite rocks have a lichen type covering, coupled with iron oxide in the rocks so some of the rocks look very colourful (see attached photo). The light was playing nice and I managed to get a couple of photos that looked ok on the camera screen so hopefully they come up alright when downloaded.

After leaving the Bay of Fires area I continued towards Freycinet. I stopped in at a few of the towns and had a bit of a look and took some photos at various spots along the beaches and around the place. I was lucky enough to see some Hooded Plover chicks and got a couple of shots of those although I am not sure how well they will turn out. The chicks were not very keen on staying still and moved surprisingly fast, running away from me as fast as their tiny legs would carry them.

By the time I got to the Department of Parks and Wildlife centre at Freycinet National Park it was about 2.30 pm - almost 6 hours from when I had left Eddystone Point. Guess the GPS wasn't that far out after all. I spoke to the ranger at the centre about camping options etc and she pointed out a free camping spot about 8 km out of town. She marked it on the map for me and I headed off to find the lighthouse.

The lighthouse is on a well formed road and well signposted. It was about 5 or 6 km from the ranger centre. Although not a grand looking lighthouse it provided a photo opportunity and after a quick walk around the lookout track I headed back to the car and to the campsite.

The campsite was easy to find and reasonably well set up with very basic facilities. There were a couple of other people setting up when I arrived but plenty of space so as not to feel on top of each other. I spent the remainder of the afternoon going for a walk, reading and generally relaxing before organising tea in time to hopefully do a bit of dusk photography of any birds around camp.

After blogging and sorting photos it will be a little bit of planning for tomorrow and then bed time. The plan for tomorrow is to head to Triabunna where the Point Home Lookout lighthouse is located. This is on private property and I am yet to discover what the chances of access are so it will be a wait and see day. After that I will head towards Maria Island and see what comes up.