Adventure Island

A she-oak needle landed softly on my face, bringing me back from a waking dream. Looking around it seemed that my companions too were busy with pursuits, the likes of which are usually reserved for balmy Sunday afternoons. One lay pinned down by the weight of a book, whilst the other I could see strolling at the waters’ edge looking slightly groggy with wonderment at the landscape.

We were halfway along the Freycinet Peninsula and getting a good dose of adventure. A cynic might say we were just lying around in the sun. I prefer to think that, having nourished our bodies, we were now preparing our minds for the paddle home.

We had set out that morning from the car park at Coles Bay, a laidback fishing and tourist town at the entrance to Freycinet National Park, on Tasmania’s east coast. The landscape of Freycinet is sublime. The water is blue, really blue, and crystal clear. The peninsula’s position in a rain shadow means there is little or no rain, hence no rivers feeding sediment into the ocean to cloud its waters. The sky is even bluer still. The beaches are quartz white and curiously, due to the endemic lichen, the rocks are bright orange.
Through this scene cruised our flotilla of equally colourful sea kayaks. These craft are far more stable than their slender appearance suggests and are kept on course with a foot controlled rudder, leaving your hands free to do the real work.

After a few stiff strokes to get the kayak moving, they glide along, seemingly on their own. On the open ocean and in times of bad weather I’m sure there is a lot to learn about sea kayaking, but on a still summer’s day, sheltered behind the Freycinet Peninsula, it seemed a breeze.
There are a number of things about sea kayaking that suit my way of thinking: no walking, no hills and ample room in a kayak to stow a generous picnic. Perhaps most wonderfully, in a sea kayak travel is faster than on foot, leaving plenty of time to digest a generous lunch before the return journey.

Out on the water, I am seeing a perspective of the land that simply isn’t possible from shore. The Hazards Range towers overhead and the feeling of being small in a grand landscape is acute. As my boat slices through the water, I watch its shadow chasing me along the seabed, across the rippled sand and through the forests of vibrant green kelp into which fish, like jewels, dart to escape the menacing shadow.

It’s simple to lose yourself sea kayaking; for your mind to drift, set free by the constant motion of your paddle. And, if there were ever a place to lose your mind, I think it would be Freycinet.