旅行は私の人生なのだ

Before the sun rises from the sea, I've walked to the beach by the track from my cottage.

I look around the sky, but the weather is not as well as I think. There is just a circle of cloud blocking my vision for the sunrise.

Listening to the sound of the sea, I stand alone on the rock and wait for the change as time goes by.

Though waiting here is not so boring, I only see the sky painted with cloud and sunlight until 7:30. The sun is hidden behind.

There is a small ship staying calm in the far position of the sea.

No one knows whether there is someone on the ship or not.

Though the cloud today shows a sence of art, I worry about the weather may affect my trip to the Freyciney.

After all, wineglass bay is an important attraction in Tasmania.

It would be a pity if I could not see the beautiful bay as I arrived there.

Since I'm quite sure that the sun won't appear today, I come back to my cottage and have a hot chocolate once. It's nice to have a hot drink after staying in the cold condition for a long period.

I put my stuff back into the car. The next destination is Freycinet National Park.

Because I arrived at Swansea last night and I'm already familar with the driving in Tasmania, I spend an easy-one-hour getting to Freyciney.

The way to Freyciney National Park is clear and simple, just like the highway.

Before you buy the tickey at the tourist center, you will pass a small town near Coles Bay.

I think there should be some accommodations in the town.

The admission for one person is 12 AUD which is the standard fare for all national parks in Tasmanina, except the cralde mountains.

If you drive, the admission for one car (up to eight peple) is 24 AUD.

Because I drive alone, it's not quite good to pay 24 AUD. However, the distance to the wineglass bay seems to be very far from tourist center and I think no shuttle runs here. So I still buy the car ticket with a free map.

You may watch the map below. When you drive from visitor reception southbound to the wineglass bay along the red line, there is a branch in the middle that goes to Cap Tourville. If you finish the walk around wineglass bay, you could visit there as well.

For most of the tourists who don't have plenty of time, wineglass bay is the first must-go place on their list.

Driving from the tourist center southbound, it takes a few minutes to arrive at the car park.

It is the start point for the hiking to wineglass bay and hazeards beach.

The track to wineglass bay is between Mt. Amos and Mt. Mayson, and there is a lookout at the summit for the tourists who don't have enough time when they come here by bus.

As you reach wineglass bay, you could go back to car park in the way you came, or follow the Isthmus track to hazards beach and walk the outer track around Mt. Mayson from hazards beach to car park. The wineglass beach - Hazards beach circuit takes about four to five hours.

Due to the time I have today, I decide to walk the wineglass bay - hazards beach circuit after I studied the information. Maybe I will only visit here once in my lifetime, so I don't want to regret not walking to hazards beach this time.

Though it's cloudy in the morning of Swansea, the weather here is quite good and hot. That's a good news.

Someone says that the number of steps on the track to wineglass bay is up to 300. So, it means that there are 150 steps on the uphill path. These ascent steps let me reminds that Po, the dragon warrior, in kung fu panda said some words as he faced the stairs to the top of tower: my biggest enermy, stairs.

It's true that it's harder for the fat person or panda to climb because they have to do more work in pysics.

Unfortunately, I'm over weight a lot, and thus it's quite tired for me to climb to the summit when I walk with my camara bag that is about 5 kg in weight. I'm sure that I will not return to the car park in the same way.

I arrive at the wineglass bay at about 11:10 as I departed from the car park at 9:30.

Although it's a tiring job to get across the mountain, I'm rewarded with watching two wallabies as I reach there.

　The sun, the beautiful beach and little lovely wallabies.

Nothing is better than what I see in the wineglass bay. I could take lots of photos here.

Maybe I bring my lunch with me (two pices of toast and a tomato).

Maybe someone fed them before.

These two wallabies are not afriad of people and they will get close to the tourists if you squat down with friendly behaviors (or spread the smell of food).

I try to touch his head and it's lucky that this wallaby raises his "hand" to reject my touch and the picture took by another friendly tourist looks very special. Yah, Give Me Five!

However, this good thing indicates another bad thing. Someone must feed them before, or most wild animals will not get close to human.

You may notice there should be at least one board nearby telling you not to feed the wild animals.

The wild animals may be aggressvie and will attack human if you do something that is also aggressvie to them.

Feeding wild animals is also another wrong mercy. Too much feeding will make these animals as pets. They will depend a lot on human to be fed and lost their natural ability of looking for food.

There are many monkeys in Taiwan, especially in Kaohsiung. However, most people will feed them due to the wrong mercy. While these monkeys know they could find the food from human, they even break into the house to steel whatever they like.

Besides, wild animals may have some disease you don't know. So, you have better not to touch them, no matter how cute they are.

These problems are also common in Taiwan, such as monkeys, pegions, wild dogs and cats. 

Sometimes, I think that our education give us the wrong concept, such as feeding is a good thing. The zoo or the farm also encourage tourists to feed the animals that makes tourists feed any animals they meet.

Even we don't tell our children the difference between the pets and the wild animals, and most of us will treat these wild animals as pets.

Therefore, though I'm happy with meeting the wallabies, I'm a little worry about their life in nature.

The wineglass bay lookout at the summit is closed in winter. It is a pity that I could not watch the beautiful arc of the bay in the high position, but the scene around the bay is still wonderful, expecially the weather is fine now and the clouds with special shape also make the beach much picturesque.

Keeping walking along the beach, the ithmus track to hazards beach is near.

The scenery along the track is quite common. Maybe it's winer, I only see trees and grass, and a small lagoon on the half way.

Before finishing the track, the boardtrack will be covered by sand. I think it only takes me less than thirty minutes to arrive at hazards beach that is also beautiful as wineglass bay.

The shape of the hazards beach is much like the straight line while wineglass bay is like the arc.

And hazards beach is much wider than wineglass bay. No matter what the differences are, they are both beautiful places to me.

I meet the cruise ship while I take photos before the beach.

The sand here also looks different. I don't know how to describe, but you know how different they are when you wtach the pictures.

When the water goes back and forth on the beach, it shows the beauty of the crystal-clear sea.

When I reach the end of the beach, the ground becomes the red rock shore. That is another difference you could only feel at the hazards beach.

So, I did the right decision to visit both the wineglass bay and hazards beach. 

According to the map, the rest journey is the long track around the mountain that would lead me to the car park.

In winter, though you still could see the forest somewhere, you would feel the silence of the death when you walk alone on the track where the trees look sad.

This track is quite original, or primitive. There is no the actual road for the comfortable walking.

Sometimes I wonder whether I get lost or not until I find another steps as I pass the rocks.

No sign or indicator is set on the way. I only know I will see the creeks twice on the track.

Thus, the only thing you have is your intuition, and you feel excited and energetic when you really see the creek on your way.

Before I reach the car park, it starts to rian and the weather becomes bad as I guessed in the morning.

I'm really lucky that I enjoyed the good weather in the wineglass bay and hazards beach, and I bring the umbrella with me now.

About 2:37, I finally come back to the car park. 

The time is exactly clear for I watch the time when I finish the hiking.

It totally spent me four and half hours, and I feel quite tired now.

At the car park, I see another wallaby. It's sad that the wallaby seems to want to get the food from human.

I really think that it's wrong to feed the wild animals.

I drive to the tourist center for the toilet and buy the beautiful postcards of the wineglass bay.

The scenery is so marvelous that I want to share the view with my friends.

After a short stay in the tourist center, I leave Freycinet national park and go to Becheno for the accommodation tonight. I don't want to find the hostel in the dark night again as my bad experience last night.

It's easy to find the hostel when I arrive at Bicheno. The road sign is very important for the tourists.

Bicheno YHA owns eight rooms and one room could accommodate eight people.

In this low season, I could enjoy one room myself. There is a locker under your bed, but the room door is unlockable (no keys or room cards). Therefore you have better keep your stuffs in the locker.

The building has the kitchen and the small living room where should be very busy in the peak season.

Though the door of this building has the number lock, it is not locked during the daytime.

When I check in the room in the reception, I also ask for the information of the penguin tour in the night.

The office of the tour company is about five-minute walking from the hostel.

Actually, the Bicheno is so a small twon that you could find the post office, bank, pharmercy, super market and restaurants around the twon center.

As for the tour company, it's also the shop for clothes and sport equipments.

The Bicheno Penguin Tours departs from the office at 5:45 in the winter.

You could see little penguins here all the year, but the breeding season (from Sep to Nov) would be better to see lots of penguins.

The staff tells us not to bring the camara for the flash light will make penguins blind, and it's also not easy to record the video in the dark unless you have the special, expensive equipments.

If you want to take photos of penguins, the only place may be the zoo where you could watch penguins in the daytime and you could take photos without the flash light.

Because there is about one hour before the deparure, I go back to the hostel and cook the dinner earlier.

The medium steak is always my favorite, especially the australian beef is good in quality. I only season with some black pepper.

Another is the red curry vegetable soup with some chips which I bought before.

After the ealry dinner, I write the postcards that could be posted later when I go for the penguin tour.

Six o'clock in the night, there are about nine tourists gathering in front of the office. Most of them are childrens.

We get on the shuttle and go to the location for watching penguins. The place is not far from here which is located in back of a hotel, and if you stay at this hotel, you could visit the private area in the daytime. However,   access in the night is not allowed unless you join the tour.

The guide takes the torch and lead us for finding penguins. After a short walk, we see three little penguins walking very carefully from the shore to thier borrow. 

Basically, the penguins here live in the short bushes as their borrow, but some will live in the wood box provided by the researchers. I think they also like the safe place provieded by human, if they don't mnd someone will open their roof in the night.

The guide introduce everything about little penguins in detail. However, my English is not so good that I could not realize all the words he says. The most impressive and frequent term I heard is "Borrow".

On the way for searching the penguins, we also heard the sound made by the penguins that is not common when you are in the zoo. This sound is used for sending messages to other penguins.

Though I don't have any photo or video during the tour, I think it's still a nice expenrience.

You may watch and take photos clearly in the zoo, but the real and natural life of these penguins only could be observed in the nature. No book or movie could give you such impressive expenrience when you observe them in their own place.

Route of Today ---

A：Swansea

B：Freycinet National Park Vistor Center

C：Car Park (to Wineglass Bay)

D：Bicheno