The Tasmania Tour, Gate 5: Wineglass Bay

I’ve already introduced you to the spectacular Wineglass Bay here.

The bay itself is one of several renowned beaches on Tasmania’s Freycinet Peninsula, a narrow elbow of coastline jutting out into the southern ocean on the island’s east coast. Accessible from the settlement of Coles Bay, Freycinet is a National Park, with fees applying for entry. There is a well-trod path that leads up from the parking lot to a viewpoint, and from there the option to return to the vehicles, or continue down to the beach itself. Walking tracks and even campgrounds give access to Wineglass and other beaches in the area.

The main viewpoint is a moderately easy 30-40 minute uphill walk following a clearly marked trail- also clearly marked by the long string of tourists making their way to see the vista. One of Tasmania’s best-known beaches, Wineglass presents a visually appealing sight, a wide gently-curving strip of white sand against an azure sea. The viewpoint itself is spread out over a series of adjutting boulders and bare rocks, although while I was up there the wind made taking even simple photographs quite an obnoxious experience. The day, which had started overcast and spotty with rain, developed into one spotted with white fluffy clouds, and eventually, a cloudless afternoon, perfect both for enjoying the scenery, and the photography.

A large number of travellers appear to be content with the walk to the viewpoint. However another 45 minutes down the other side gives access to the beach itself. We visited it mid-week after schools had gone back, and there were still people on the sand- but not many. Clustered where the path empties onto one end of the beach there averaged a dozen or so mostly-backpackers having a snack and a paddle before returning over the hill. We wandered along the sand for ten minutes and found ourselves almost completely secluded- there were maybe ten other people spread out over the mile+ of sand around us. A little slice of paradise.

At the end of the day, Wineglass Bay is just a beach. But it’s one heck of a beach. The sand is white and naturally clean, almost completely free of debris and in no way articifical. The water has to be seen to be believed. An exquisite turquoise colour, it is achingly, almost glacially clear (yes I know that glacier water is not clear at all but filled with minerals and sediment). I would dare to say possibly the cleanest, clearest seawater I have ever swum in.

And swim we did. Let’s get one thing clear. Tasmania, for all the beautiful sunshine we had, is not renowned for its weather. Well, actually, it is. It is renowned for being cold and wet. We lucked out with a string of beautifully sunny days, but even with the sun out, it’s hardly very hot compared to Australian norms. The water, by contrast, is frigid. With no landmass between the Tassie coast and Antarctica, the water feels as though it didn’t long ago melt. The icy bite only added to the sense of cleanliness, however. The swim was bracing, and we loved it for the experience, not just to be able to say we’d done it.

I spent a while snapping shots along the beach. A long while, in fact. It remains one of the prettiest and most photogenic beaches I’ve ever been on, and it was hard to stop. The colour the water appeared through my polarizing filter was simply eye-popping, and not done justice here on the pages of this blog. Something of a connaisseur of beaches (I’ve explored attractive beaches on at least five continents), I’d have to rate Wineglass Bay both as one of the most memorable, and one of the most simply beautiful. Additionally, the fact that, despite not being tropical, it was nearly empty, leant it a nearly mythic status which places it right up at the top of the must-see places to visit in Tasmania. Natural beauty at its best.

I trust the images speak for themselves in encouraging you to pay it a respectful and environmentally courteous visit.

The Tasmania Tour, Gate 4: Rural Wanderings

One of my favourite things about road trips is not so much the destination (although these can be great fun), but the journey.  And I’m not just talking about the process (although I do love that too- driving new terrain is a favourite past-time, and if the company is good (and here it was spectacular) then the whole thing is a happy medley).  I’m talking about the opportunity just to stop willy-nilly and enjoy whatever surprises the landscape has to offer.

Given that we drive a fairly large portion of Tasmania in our six-day circuit, these little surprises were a regular feature of the journey.  I’ve already showcased one such little surprise, the church in the field, in Buckland.  Here’s a smattering more.

Those who know my photography by now have worked out that I’m an absolute sucker for road shots.  Love ‘em.  The way they lead the eye, teasingly, across a landscape, or into a vanishing point, giving both a visual sense of motion, and a soulful sense of travelling.  They’re reminiscent as subjects of the very feeling they evoke- that of moving from one place to another.  And, of course, they’re the archetypal road-trip image.  Can’t go wrong.

I snapped the top image of a road snaking down through gentle country somewhere an hour or two north of Hobart, coming down off the Great Western Tiers.  The contrast between bright fields and somewhat patchy sky add drama to the view, and the road guides the viewer through the scene.

In a similar vein, on our second day we found ourselves south of Swansea on the way up the east coast, beneath a dark and brooding sky which threatened rain at every turn.  The road was largely empty of traffic and the mood was quite desolate in its own way.  Tassie was drier than either of us were expecting, and the fields were full of yellow-white grass which was a lovely counterpoint to the dark clouds.  I took a little detour into a field we were passing (which required an involved negotiation of a pair of barbed wire fences at the bottom of a little ditch- quite the delicate operation with an expensive DSLR camera and associated lenses…) to frame up this shot of a gum tree in a field, accompanied by a cattle track.  The otherwise-dull light was made more interesting by upping the contrast and saturation for a somewhat artificial but (in my humble opinion) engaging image.  This next image was snapped feet away in a different direction, and turned into a high-contrast black-and-white photo to emphasize the mood of the gusty wind in the hay.

Sometimes the light just works out, even when you’re not in any particular location, and this can make the simplest of subjects turn quite dramatic.  Part way through an afternoon sprint across the north of the island, the blue sky was dripping with saturated colour behind my polarizing filter, transforming quite the ordinary tree in the ordinary field at the roadside into a set of photographs worth indulging in:

Given my exhortation of road photography above, the next two images need no justification, save to point out that they were taken about forty-five minutes outside Launceston in some beautiful countryside, again beneath that un-ignorably blue sky.  The clouds were a great balance to break up the texture above.

Meanwhile, this next landscape was taken at near-full zoom standing in almost exactly the same spot as the above two photos (perhaps a little off to one side to avoid passing trucks)- but shot at right-angles out towards the line of hills in the middle distance.  The landscape was one I could have explored for far longer had I the time.

And finally, on the same afternoon but a couple of hours and several hundred k’s further on, these two shots of Mt. Roland were begging to be taken.  In the first shot in particular I loved the faint rows of cut grass leading the eye up to the mountain.  The blue sky against the green fields and that textured rock made this a shot I was really chuffed with.

All up, lots of great touring to be had in Tasmania.  Destinations aside, I’m pretty sure I could go back and just drive around taking photos of random aspects.  That’s the sort of place Tasmania is.  We basically spent six days looking out of the car window going- ‘oh wow, isn’t that beautiful!’  You may have noticed, but this is the nth post I’ve put up now exhorting you to go visit.  Taken the hint yet?  Get there!

Up soon: Wineglass Bay

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The Tasmania Tour, Gate 2: The Church in the Field

 

Flitting along the main road north of Hobart up Tasmania’s east coast, we stumbled upon the little hamlet of Buckland, an otherwise forgettable assortment of homes set back from the highway and with no discernable impact on the landscape.

This church was a little different. Sandstone hues painted in the afternoon sunlight, it was framed against the blue sky and I instantly felt the urge to pull the car up the access lane for a quick shoot. I think we ended up spending a good half hour there, enjoying the play of light on the scenery and exploring the little cemetary around the front.

Any outdoor shoot is at the whim of the weather, which in turn dictates both the light, and the backdrop. For this subject, the warm yellows and oranges in the brickwork contrasted beautifully with the blue sky and its faint streaks of white cloud whisping in the heights. The strong, almost 2-dimensional face was bathed front-on in lightly-angled sunshine, making the bricks radiate a visible warmth.

The church itself is reminiscent of many on the Tasmanian landscape. I lost track of how many I saw that matched it in style and structure, and each of them was visually appealing- although this one took the cake for its prominence and the beautiful lighting. I particularly enjoyed the bell-tower, almost reminiscent of the Hispanic-style churches of the American south-west, and the buttressed corners. The simple, symmetrical architecture is visually appealing, and the textures of the brickwork are a joy to explore with the eyes.

While I fired off some shots of the building, A. took a few of her own, including a couple of me lining up the shots- a bit of a rarity actually, so I’ve taken the opportunity to share one with you here. As you can see, funky angles don’t happen by accident…

Shooting with an ultra-wide-angle lens (12mm on a full-frame Canon EOS 5D) always gives entertaining angles on architectural subjects. For this shot of the face, I was standing probably 3 steps back from the base of the wall- so you can see how much the lens manages to suck in its surroundings. It’s a beautiful piece of glass.

I enjoy exploring a particular subject from different angles- and admittedly while this set of photos isn’t perhaps vastly differentiated, for me each of the shots captures a slightly different take on the church, and I like how they fit together.

Next stop: Freycinet Peninsula

The Tasmania Tour, Gate 1: Mount Wellington

I’ve earlier commented on some of Australia’s hidden gems. As a big country, I reckon there are a lot of places to hide things in Oz where people don’t hear about them. The Opera House, Kakadu National Park, Surfer’s Paradise- these are the names that bring tourists. A little local exploration uncovers the really fun stuff. Wilson’s Prom was a great example. Travelling the Oodnadatta Track in South Australia was another.

Tasmania is rife with such underrated pockets. The Belgium to Australia’s France, it’s considered an addendum to the mainland, windswept and cold compared to the tropical beaches of Queensland and Bondi, and without the classic desert stonescapes of the Red Centre. Inbred jokes about Tasmanians rival sheep jokes that plague Kiwis. It’s not really big on the backpacker circuit.

Which, in my opinion, is great. Though the backpackers certainly miss out.

We start with Hobart. A sleepy seaside city, its population of a quarter of a million people are dotted about on a series of wooded hills around a series of bays and harbours. A compact Central Business District which takes twenty minutes to cross by foot is clustered around the old fishing port- once the commercial heart of the city, and still the focus for attention. The artsy Salamanca area hosts a vibrant Saturday market loaded with local produce and crafts- an absolute must-see if you have even the slightest inkling of interest in either markets or food. After-hours, a string of pubs and bars provide a good array of vibes, cuisines, and a pretty good selection of beers as well (I feel posts on beers coming up in the near future…).

Half an hour’s drive from the CBD is the parking lot at Mt. Wellington. With its peak at 1,271m, it provides an eagle’s-nest view of the city and its environs, and juts defiantly out into the freezing gales of the Roaring Forties. This reality can’t be underestimated. The winds here are ferocious, and even in the height of summer, bitterly cold. Getting out of the car involves careful manouvering to ensure that the door is not ripped from its hinges and next seen fluttering like tin-foil past the mast of some circumpolar racing yacht somewhere off the Ross Ice Shelf. Taking a photo involves finding shelter and bracing yourself. I lost my sunglasses here after they were plucked from my head.

There’s not a lot to do at Mt. Wellington, to be honest, unless you like geology, or landscape photography. A fifteen minute visit gives you the views of the city and the rock formations by the visitor centre (a merciful haven from the howling winds). However if you can handle the weather, there’s a short (1+ hours return) walk from the parking lot out to a series of vertically-aligned weather-rounded rocks which I assume are igneous in origin, and painted a pleasing array of orange hues. There is network of little pathways across the flat top of the mountain which are not arduous, and the views of both the clusters of rocks and the valley below make for good scenery and interesting photo opportunities. Below the summit is a distinctive fluted cliff-face known as the Organ Pipes, but we managed to miss this.

Although it was overcast when we arrived at Mt. Wellington, during our stay there the clouds broke up and became dominated by blue. Fluffy puffs of condensed moisture scudded past in the sky, making the skyscape changeable and dramatic, and a perfect counterpoint for the rounded bulges of warm reddish rock. Personally I think landscape photography works far better when there is some cloud to add contrast and depth to an image, than a flat blue sky, and I really liked how some of the cloud-forms seemed to add this third dimension to the photos I took. All up it was a fun detour and a bracing burst of fresh air. Dress warm!

Next up: The Church and the Field

Tasmania: The Taster Tour

Tasmania, for those who aren’t sure, is that little triangular-shaped island hanging off the south coast of Australia. I say little, but of course in true Australian fashion it’s actually a decent size- for our European followers, somewhere between the size of the nations of Switzerland and Austria, or about half the size of England. Or, for our American friends, a chunk smaller than the state of Maine. It has a population of about half a million people, roughly half of whom live in the capital, Hobart, on the south coast. Tassie is seperated from the Australian mainland by the heaving Bass Straits, a 9-hour ferry ride from Melbourne, and is plonked in the path of that belt of circum-polar winds known as the Roaring 40s, which belt both it and New Zealand (about 2,000km due east) with ferocious blasts of wintry air and drive a changeable and unpredictable climate consisting of large amounts of cloud, rain and, during the winter, snow.

(And yes, for those weaned on Warner Brothers cartoons, there is such a thing as a Tasmanian Devil- one of the ugliest marsupial-cum-rodents to ever scuff along the planet’s surface. No they are not cute and crazy like the cartoon. They are gruff, unpleasant things with little interest either in appearance or character (other than their endangered status), and in this Kiwi’s lexicon, sit only slightly higher than possums on the ‘animals I have no time for’ list.)

No, we didn’t see any.

We did, however, see a lot of Tasmania in our six-day tour. And, belying the climatic trends stated above, we also had fabulous weather. A day and a half of somewhat overcast weather with a few spots of drizzle divided what was otherwise largely sunny with clear afternoons and marvelous cloudscapes which made landscapery a joy.

I took a lot of photos.

I won’t be posting all of them here (although for those who are interested you can find a lot of them on the Morealtitude Photography Facebook page), but will put up a smattering of shots from the different places we went to for those who are interested, and give a bit more detail about some of the delights tucked away on this thoroughly under-rated little block of real-estate.

Arriving off the ferry from Melbourne, we docked in Davenport and drove straight down to Hobart. The trip from one end of the island to the other takes about 3 1/2 hours if you take the main highways, and is an easy run. The roads (for the most part) are in great condition (we drove through the Great Western Tiers in the Central Highlands, where sections of the road are unsealed). The best bit about driving in Tas is the utter scarcity of other road users. Seriously, the place is deserted.

(Which allows me to lie down on highways and take shots like this one)

From Hobart, we swung up the east coast, first hitting up the area around Swansea, and then up to Coles Bay and the Freycinet Peninsula. The Freycinet Peninsula is a spindly finger of mountains reaching out into the ocean, a rugged feature whose rocky abuttments are seperated by some of the most spectacular beach real-estate you’ll ever find. The water in the sunlight is clear as a spring and a turquoise so pure you want to set it into a ring and wear it away with you. Here we hiked into the spectacular Wineglass Bay before continuing northwards.

Reaching St. Helens, we then continued up to the Bay of Fires, a stretch of remote coastline on Tasmania’s north-eastern corner. Listed by the Lonely Planet as its top destination for 2009 (I didn’t know that until somebody mentioned it today), Bay of Fires is actually a series of white-sand beaches and rocky outcrops, where azure waves of the most outrageous colour crash themselves into oblivion beneath a warm sun. Not as unpopulated as it may once have been, it is none the less an amazing location, and would be right at the top of my list for future visits.

From the Bay of Fires, we stretched our last day in Tasmania into an epic marathon and swept in a single afternoon across to Cradle Mountain National Park. The heart of the highlands, the dramatic volcanic behemoth that is the park’s namesake stabbed upwards into a clear blue sky at sunset just as we reached the park, and the views were magnificent- and made the cross-country sprint completely worthwhile. A fitting finish to a beautiful little journey.

I’ll go into a little more detail about some of these locations and photoshoots in later posts. Hopefully for now, this will whet your appetite for a little more.

Images:

1. Pristine waves wash onto the pristine beach of Wineglass Bay.

2. Blue skies and puffs of cloud support a leaning gum tree in a field in Tasmania’s rural interior.

3. The Organ Pipes, geological rock formations, atop Hobart’s Mt. Wellington.

4. An empty rural highway in inland north-east Tasmania.

5. The dramatic Freycinet Peninsula (behind) as seen from Coles Bay.

6. Clear waters in Biralong Bay, at the start of the Bay of Fires.

7. Cradle Mountain at dusk.

8. Lichen-stained rocks and azure waters in Wineglass Bay.

Tassie Teaser

Just back from Tasmania and have done a partial run-through of the photos taken in a variety of shoots.  We had an awesome time with beautiful weather- couldn’t have asked for any more.  Lots more to come, but here’s a little taster…  Cradle Mountain and Wineglass Bay (I’ll leave you to work out which is which…)

See you shortly with more!