We had a wide open afternoon after hiking to Wineglass Bay, so we took a walk along the beach that is near the Saffire Freycinet lodge. Definitely a gorgeous spot!
Here is a view of the lodge on our way back up the beach. Such a cool design! It’s supposed to look like a Manta Ray from above.
The next morning we had a new guide, Paul, who has been with Saffire for 12 years. He was chock full of information. We embarked on yet another of “Tasmania’s 60 Great Short Walks” around the Cape Tourville lighthouse.
As per usual, incredible views are the norm here! Make sure Freycinet National Park is on your bucket list!
As we were leaving the parking lot we saw this Wallaby standing behind a car. Paul told the guy in this photo that he was thirsty, so this guy started pouring his water bottle into his hand, and the Wallaby drank every drop he could! The drought here is real! Our hearts broke for the little guy.
We then drove down to the edge of Cole’s Bay to a spot Paul said was excellent for photos. He wasn’t wrong!
A slightly different shot without your favorite people in it. That water is just gorgeous!
That afternoon we had yet another excursion to Cragie Knowe winery. I’ve gotta say, these wines were quite good! I even bought a bottle of Pinot! The Riesling was excellent, but I can only carry so much wine on this trip. Definitely visit this spot, the owner, Glenn Travers, is an absolute hoot!
Here’s that bottle of Pinot. Highly recommended!
I stupidly went and hit “publish” instead of “save” at this point previously, so those of you who read up to here and wondered WTF, here is the rest of the post.
On our final morning at Freycinet we took a harbor cruise with Saffire’s own boat. The first stop was this small spot along Cole’s Bay where two brothers from Italy decided to quarry the gorgeous pink granite along the shoreline back in 1934. They did it all by hand.
A little farther along the bay is a more traditional quarry site, that operated up until 1970. Pink granite from this site can still be seen in some famous buildings today, including the Parliament House in Canberra, the capital city of Australia.
As we were traveling along the shoreline our guide, Fraser, saw this fairly rare White-bellied Sea-Eagle in the trees. We actually ended up seeing 4 of these guys during our cruise.
These Sea-Eagles make massive nests that they live in for life, and even pass down to their kids.
We passed a bunch of seals lounging on a small island in the bay. The life if a seal sounds pretty rough.
This guy seemed to actually be posing for me. You can see he’s looking right at the camera.
These two young seals seemed to keep going at it, like two brothers fighting over sitting in the front seat.
This seal seemed to be forming an O with his fins. He was like this for awhile. Did somebody release a trained seal?
As we approached what our guide called Bryan’s Beach you could see the dramatic colors of the super clear water.
The water along the beach was about the clearest (and bluest) I’ve seen in the ocean.
We pulled up next to a rock that was just covered in Cormorants. Not sure what all that white stuff is on the rocks though! These birds are often mistaken for penguins due to their coloring.
Our cruise circled Schouten Island to the south of Cole’s Bay. The cliffs here are quite impressive. We even pulled part way into a sea cave so our captain could show off his seamanship skills.
This was my favorite photo from the cruise. The colors in this spot are amazing! The orange is lichen growing on the pink granite, just like we saw at Remarkable Rocks on Kangaroo Island.
One last shot off Schouten Island. Those rocks on the shoreline look like a boat launch or an old building foundation, but they are entirely natural.
I had to take a shot of this sign you see as you enter Saffire Freycinet. There is one at the main entrance that says “private property, guests only”, and then a little ways in there is this one, just to make sure the message gets across.
Up next, we drive south to Hobart for our last Tasmanian stop.