Hiking Freycinet National Park: Day 4, Cooks Beach to Wineglass Bay

The morning had come. We left the campsite by 7am after a quick morning of dressing and packing. Whether I was ready or not, we would be climbing up Mt Freycinet and Mt Graham and hiking over the saddle to Wineglass Bay-- the feature of Freycinet National Park and our final campsite.

After crossing the beach, we stopped for a quick breakfast of muesli bars and stripped off our extra layers because we new the steep climb through the forest would be a lot warmer than the trek across a windy beach first thing in the morning. And once we had no more reasons to stall anymore, we set started our ascent.

After a few hours of hiking through the eucalyptus forest, we can to the rock cairn that marked the separate climb to Mt Freycinet. We'd been planning for this side hike and we started down the path, finding a good spot to hide our packs while we continued on scrambling up rocks to the summit. The path up Mt Freycinet was not well marked, though several rock cairns had been put up in place of the occasional orange arrow.

As we continued to climb, we got a few glimpses of the view we were about to have.

But it wasn't until after we scrambled up the last few granite rocks and popped out the trees did we really get an amazing 360 degree view. It was worth the climb.

We sat there for some time, soaking in the view of the beaches and trees far below. We could see back to the tip of the peninsula and to Schouten Island.

But eventually we started to feel hungry and decided to head back down to pick up our packs and have a quick lunch before continuing on. We met a few women on the way down and said hello before scrambling down the rest of the rocks.

After a relaxing lunch, Shannon and I set off for Mt Graham feeling optimistic. That was quickly destroyed as the hike up Mt Graham felt steeper and more difficult with a pack on. Every time I climbed up another granite rock, I felt I had to struggle to stand up again with an extra 15 kgs weighing down on me. Partway up we were stopped by a man asking if we had seen his son. This question shocked us as we had seen no one. And the thought of losing someone in a National Park sounded terrifying. I could only imagine the thoughts going through his head as he asked us before continuing on.

As it turned out, a father, mother and two sons had hiked up from Wineglass Bay for a day hike. The older son (who turned out was about 14) had gone ahead of the group and once the family reached the summit of Mt Graham lost all sight of him. For about two hours the father searched around the trails for his son as the mother and younger son traveled back to the camp. As it turned out, the son had run on ahead and as there was the side trail for Mt Freycinet, the father and son kept missing each other.

I take it as a lesson about why it's very important to stick with the group out in the wilderness. While that kid was tall and reasonably smart (I say reasonably smart because he did run off from him family and leave them panicking about his safety for several hours), he still could have slipped and hit his head. The path was not well marked around Mt Graham and the granite rocks were large and some of them were wet and slippery.

Thinking of the family made the walk along the saddle a quiet one. By the time we started our long and winding descend to Wineglass, we were feeling a bit tired.

Aching, sore, hungry and tired, we finally saw the rot-a-loo, signifying we had reached the campsite. I was about ready to collapse and had already managed to suck my hydration bladder dry. It didn't help that it had been the warmest day of the trip so far that we chose to hike those 14kms.

Both Shannon and I were a bit cranky and it took three tries of setting up the tent and taking down the tent at three different locations before we found one that we both liked and that was secluded enough so that we didn't have to see other campers. This was by far the busiest campsite and the least nice.

The sand was like dirty ash and got everywhere for starters. It was the smallest campsite, but had the most amount of people and many of them large and talkative groups. And to finish it off the rot-a-loo was the most used and therefore the worst smelling of all of them. It also didn't help that there was a huge spider in one of the stalls. Not that I close the doors on the rot-a-loo to use them, I'm afraid I'd die of asphyxiation in there.

But after a nap out of the hot, late afternoon sun and a snack overlooking the beach, things didn't seem so bad anymore. Except for the fact that we had less than one litre of water left and another full day in the park. Instead of spending a day playing in the water (it was too cold anyways) and relaxing on the beach, we had to make the decision to hike out to the carpark a day early to get more water and hike back. There was no water to treat at Wineglass Bay and so hiking out was our only option.

So, after enjoying a hot dinner and a sunset on the beach, we turned in early for another day of hiking.