The weather this morning was beautiful and before breakfast,
I took a walk around Robert’s gardens and snapped a few pics. I must be a breakfast disaster for
B&B’s. Yesterday, I set off
the fire alarms with my burnt toast, and today, I shorted out both our unit and
Rhonda and Milt’s by reheating coffee, that Robert kindly made for me last
night when I complained about having to drink instant. I guess those water boilers that they
use here don’t like coffee, because it boiled over, sending coffee everywhere
causing the short. Well, at least
I didn’t burn the place down.
The drive to the Freycinet Peninsula, our next stop, was
beautiful. We stopped to take
photos along the way at beautiful vistas of Great Oyster Bay, and took a short
walk in Swansea at Waterloo Point (AKA, Loontitetermairrelehoiuner Track)to
stretch our legs. We also hit some
tourist stops, the convict constructed “Spiky Bridge”, and Kate’s Berry Farm.
This region is also known for its wines, and when we saw
Milton Winery, we had to stop. The
winery is in a beautiful setting with the tasting room overlooking a pond with
the vineyards in the distance. We
were compelled to buy something, and found a nice dessert iced Riesling that we
planned to drink with dessert at some point in the trip. We got plenty of pictures of Milt with
the Milton Winery logo, and also bought some unbreakable Milton wine glasses as
a souvenir for Milt.
We finally got to Freycinet Lodge early afternoon (Christmas
Eve) and had plans to visit the fairy penguins in Bichenot about 45 min north
of our hotel. The penguin walk started at 9:00 (it
gets dark here around 9:30), so we decided to check out Freycinet then head up
to Bichenot for dinner. In the meantime, there were a couple of short walks to
lookouts that we visited before heading up to Bichenot.
Cape Tourville Lighthouse walk is about a ½ hr. walk that
gives beautiful views of the coastline and a another ½ hour walk to Sleepy Bay
on the Tasman Sea. Freycinet
National Park is one of the oldest in Tasmania, established in 1916. It is 48 km long and 6 km wide
encompassing nearly the entire peninsula.
As we entered Bichenot, we ran into a fire truck with its
sirens and light going, but traveling at a snail’s pace. We then learned 2 things. First, there is apparently at leaswt in
Bichenot, a tradition that the fire department rides around town throwing candy
to (or at?) children on Christmas Eve.
The second thing we learned is don’t let your house catch fire in
Bichenot on Christmas eve.
Bichenot has three restaurants that were opened, a pub, a
seafood restaurant on the water, and a Chinese restaurant. We decided to check out the Chinese
restaurant so that we may join our Jewish friends + Andy and Betty for dinner
long distance. Unfortunately, the Chinese restaurant looked a bit like
a dump, and we didn’t want to risk food poisoning. It was also empty, and the last Chinese restaurant we ate in
that was empty was a real terrible experience (in Holland). So we decided to
learn from past mistakes and eat seafood.
The penguin tour was pretty nice, though they would not
allow any photography (flashes can blind the penguins). In a way, it took the pressure off of
me and meant I didn’t have to schlep any photography equipment). There are about 700 pairs of “fairy” or
little penguins that nest in the Bichenot area. The penguins burrow in the dunes and can go as far as a
kilometer inland, sometimes burrowing under peoples’ houses. The adults spend
the day at sea and then return en masse to shore at dusk to feed their young by
regurgitation. It’s pretty funny
to see these tiny penguins with enormous guts on them after eating all
day, trying to waddle up the
beach. We spent about an hour
watching the penguins haul out of the water and climb to their burrows.
The drive home was a bit hair raising. At dark, all the nocturnal animals come
ou to play chicken with cars. Too
often, they loose, and the road into Freycinet National Park is littered with
bodies by morning. We managed to NOT hit a couple of wallabies, a pademelon, a
possum, and the best miss, a Tasmanian devil (who darted across the road and
beat our car). Made it back with
no runs, no hits, no errors, and nobody left on. Tomorrow our first big hike.
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