Freycinet

Freycinet
Freycinet National Park, Tasmania
Published by Wilderness Photo
ISBN 0-9579744-1-8

Freycinet Peninsula is a delicate finger of land 50 kilometres long, pointing at the southern ocean. At its tip is Schouten Island, the last hurrah of land before hitting Antarctica.

Freycinet evokes pictures of serenity. The pure, sweet curve of Wineglass Bay, rimmed with white sand, safely cradled within rocky headlands. The majestic granite boulders on steep slopes and along the coast, formed by water washing soil away, napped with vivid orange growths.

This is the rich glowing colour caught in many of Rob Blakers’ superb photographs.

Rob, whose work can also be seen here in Leatherwood Online, is a wilderness photographer of not only technical talent that much is obvious but also of interpreting the moment. He captures the innate stillness and, indeed, gravitas, of this fingerpoint of land with its looming, bare mountain tops.

The sea is expressed in stretches of glasslike water, or a perfect, slowly curving, translucent wave. There is no tempestuous Freycinet here, mainly because the only way you can view the tumult of southern seas against the indomitable eastern coastline is from the sea and you can’t go seawards when a swell is running.

But this collection of images will be the Freycinet that is best remembered, that draws people like a magnet under skies bluer than the rest of the island, designated along with Mt Field in 1916 as the first national parks in Tasmania, and easy to access.

People come to the gentle sweep of Coles Bay, climb the northernmost section of The Hazards to view Wineglass Bay and may continue down to water level to cross the isthmus and complete the circuit back along beaches and the rocks of Fleurieu Point to Coles Bay again. It takes maybe three, four or five hours there’s no need to hurry.

Others take three, four or five days to walk the length of the peninsula and will experience for themselves some of the high vantage points Blakers used to frame several of his dramatic shots.

If you intend doing either, then read the book first. Jamie Kirkpatrick is currently Professor and Head of The School of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Tasmania, and gives a scholarly exposition of the history, geology, botany, and marine life of this iconic part of Tasmania.

After your return, the photographs will tell an even more memorable story. And if you are an armchair traveller, or time doesn’t permit, then simply enjoy this beautiful offering. Patsy Hollis

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