I had originally planned to walk the Penguin Cradle trail, rest for 3 days and then walk the Overland track. Well, after some contemplation, I decided to see more of Tasmania than just spend 18 days hiking and 3 days resting in between. So, I decided to do a tour of Tasmania instead. And my first stop is the Freycinet Peninsula.

As I drove across Tasmania, I discovered there are mountainous national parks dotted all over the place. I could spend months here just walking all the wondrous places here.

On the east coast, I glared out to sea and as I rounded the coast, I came to Bicheno, a small town with some small smooth granite hills and rocky islands in the bay. The Freycinet Peninsula is, perhaps, 20km south of Bicheno and I wasn’t expecting what I saw when I arrived at Coles Bay on the peninsula.

On the far side of the bay from the village is a line of granite mountains. I just sat there in the van with my mouth open. I had to find out more, so I drove to the Information Centre and discovered the walks in the region, and that there’s another set of taller mountains on the other side. If I’d spent more time researching, I’d have stayed longer and explored more.

It rained overnight and there are plenty of warnings about climbing the mountain when wet, or should I say, to not climb. It was clear in the morning but decided to climb the most popular mountain – Mt Amos – in the afternoon once it had dried out a little. In the photo above, Mt Amos is the second one from the right. Not the tallest, but the most accessible even though it’s still described as being an arduous climb.

After paying the rather expensive park entry fee, I drove in and parked at the car park that is the beginning of most of the walks in the region. The rather large car park was almost full, but I was hoping that as Mt Amos was the hardest in the area, most people would take the easier walks.

The trail started up a fairly easy sandy path that wound through the forest, but I soon came to a sign that warned of the arduousness beyond that point. I headed on and while the initial part wasn’t difficult, I could see why they would warn not to climb in the wet.

The fairly smooth rock ledges would indeed have been slippery, even to grippy hiking boots. But there were some interesting colours in the rock.

I climbed, with awesome looking boulders of various sizes dotting the mountain side.

Behind me, as I climbed, the growing sight of the bay and the township of Coles Bay.

As these mountains tend to do, the climb became rather steep and with the slippery rocks, the trail followed small gaps created by water over the millennia up the side of the mountain. Even then, it was still fairly slow work. When I came to the top of this steep section, the area at the top of Mt Amos levelled out, well as flat as a rocky mountain top…

Mt Amos is fairly flat at the top, although there are several taller rocky areas. The trail led me to the highest one on the far side of the mountain. The view was amazing. A small spit joined the peaks I was on – known as the Hazard Peaks – with the larger set of peaks on the far side, the tallest one being Mt Freycinet. Between the two sets of peaks is the horseshoe shaped beach of Wineglass Bay.

I climbed to several of the other spires, finding lesser known trails or just finding my own way as I’m prone to do. The views from all sides were simply amazing.

I descended, taking the steeper sections on my butt, but found no troubles getting back to The Pointy Brick and the caravan park.

If this one walk is anything to go by, I want to return here one day. On this trip I have walked some amazing places in Australia, and this has to be one of the better ones. A great place in the world, The Freycinet Peninsula, South East Tasmania.

Next I’m off to Port Arthur to see what the Tasman National Park has to offer.

The Lone Trail Wanderer.