Saying goodbye to the Cygnet gang, Tommy and I caught a coach up to Bicheno on the east coast of Tassie, hoping to get a connection to Coles Bay in the beautiful Freycinet National Park just south of Bicheno. Unfortunately the connection wasn't possible, and after half an hour's unsuccessful attempts at hitching in the fading light, we gave up and stayed the night in Bicheno, and very pleasant it was too.
Bicheno is a picturesque little port, and has a colony of fairy penguins that crawl around the coast at sunset. We hit the beach at sundown and waited around for a while, but we couldn't see anything except for a wicked blowhole that shot water everywhere when the waves hit it. So we went off wandering, and before long we stumbled across nest with a baby penguin in it. It was so cute, but it was cowering away under a rock, so we left it and returned to the shore where, half an hour later, this tiny foot-tall fairy penguin waddled right past Tommy and into the rocks. There might not have been penguins exactly everywhere, but that made it even more special to see some.
Wednesday meant an early start to catch the coach to Coles Bay, which was simply stunning. We went for a walk that took in the beaches of Wine Glass Bay and Hazards Bay, some of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen. I just had to have a swim, but it was freezing; on the other hand, when you actually got numb, it was beautifully refreshing, and it was crystal clear, like all good beach swims. What a lovely area the east coast of Tasmania is.