​Freycinet Peninsula 7 April

The Hazards from Moulting Lagoon

Moulting Lagoon Game reserve on the Freycinet Peninsula - hello here we are, or rather there we were, camped in relative quiet without water and power, but a mere hop, step and jump from the lagoon and away from the increasing madding crowd flocking to the tourist spots of this world famous peninsular. Natural bush and some exotics (like beautiful wild passion fruit) and loads of birds surrounded us on one side and on the other is the lagoon opening into Coles Bay.

Our camping spot for the night - surrounded by quiet bush,

While I was snapping this spectacular passion flower,
a bee dropped in for afternoon tea.

Standing on the edge of the lagoon, to my east I can see the nubbly piles of giant granite tors of The Hazards which form the stony spine of the peninsular, jutting into the sky and to my west in the near distance are oyster beds and lots of water birds. In front of me on the mud flats, the silence and stillness is broken only by the popping and snapping of crab holes and the occasional swish of bird wings. It's lovely.

The boat that would take us into the open sea! Looks more like a harbour boat to me.
The rocky Hazards in the background. Our cruise was to take us to the seaward side of the
peninsula  - Wineglass bay, in line eastward with this point. 

After a kick-back night around a brilliant camp fire, we emerged from 'the bush' for what we hoped would be a decadent lunch cruise from Coles Bay to Wine Glass Bay. Variety is the spice of life!
The cruise took us along the west coast of the peninsular with lots of photo ops. We came upon a pod of dolphins, or they found us! and we circled each other for 20 mins or so. It was really something to see them almost touching the boat when they came up for air. It is likely that they are part of the same large pod of bottle-nose dolphins mainly resident in Great Oyster Bay, which we were sailing through, and part of the pod we encountered on our Maria Island trip.

The Hazards overlooking Wineglass Bay which is to the left of this.

Lemon Rock, the rocky cluster in the foreground, at the mouth of the bay once housed a lighthouse.

The open sea, once we rounded the southern tip of the peninsular and 'bobbed' our way through the Scholten passage barely an hour into the trip, was rough and a third of the passengers got very very sick. Poor things! I really felt for them. The condition of the sea, we believe, prevented the expected stop in Wineglass bay for lunch, but we weren't told. It was well over three and a half hours before we dropped anchor for lunch and most passengers were rather hanging out for something to quell rumbling and seedy tummies. It was a rather disappointing cruise - apart from the dolphins! But there you are ......

We pulled into this spot close to 2pm for lunch!
The water here on the west of the peninsular was relatively calm and beautiful.

Once back on terra firma, we hopped back in the van and headed for the Bay of Fires and Cosy Corner where we had spent a few idyllic days back in 2013.

Bay of Fires is so beautiful - this is Cosy Corner

Cosy Corner in 2013 - not a soul there but us!  What a contrast (NB different car)
We traveled over 6000 Km on that Tassie trip; this  trip we did 7500 Km.
Between those trips our trusty little caravan has done ~17500 Km. What a cracker!

It just wasn't our day! Firstly the place was chock-a-block with campers and when we finally found a spot at another place, we unhooked only to find we had no battery power. That meant no hot water but worse than that, no water pump for any temperature water, no lights but hey .....  To top it off it started to drizzle so no camp fire. Oh dear! But we are hardy souls. We always have loads of food and the good stuff, a gas stove and lots of bottled water and we dined by lit candles and made do. It was fine. Next day we high-tailed it out of there!
We ended up at Bridport on what the manager called his honeymoon site overlooking the sea with the water and rocks at our very door step - almost. The day ended well!