Sleeping in the car overnight disposed of our usual morning routine: me putting off getting up for an hour, spending the next couple of hours trying to get Kevin up before the morning was over, then spending the next half hour packing the tent and stuff back in the car. Even if our sleep hadn’t been comfortable, it felt quite novel to wake up and then be ready to drive off 5 minutes later.
Heading south towards the Freycinet Peninsula, we stopped in by Douglas-Apsley National Park and did a 2.7km trail that we thought led to some amazing falls. After walking what felt like at least 2.7km we came back upon the river we’d crossed earlier, except this part was faster, deeper and looked a lot less fun to cross. If there was anything of interest on the other side, maybe I’ll never know, but when we got back to the carpark and re-interrogated the map, we realised the falls were on a different track that would take days to hike. The best view we got was from a lookout that was closed because of landslip, overlooking the bend in river where the shallow river-crossing is.
Bicheno, a small town with a beautiful bay and beach, was annoying as it seemed devoid of free bbqs – something we’d come to rely on to save us using all our camping gas in a couple of days – leaving us hopelessly trying to fry all the stuff we’d bought for a bbq on a useless frying pan, perched aloft a pitiful stove. We eventually ate and retired to the beach for the rest of the afternoon, although the water wasn’t really warm enough for my liking for a swim. It wasn’t far off Coral Bay for beauty though, with clear water and fish swimming right up to shore.
Intending on hitting the Freycinet Peninsula next morning, we took the Coles Bay road and parked up at the River and Rocks campground, not far from the town. I had a seemingly brilliant idea that I would try sleeping across the back seat of the car as I really didn’t like trying to sleep on the almost-but-not-quite-flat front-seats of the car. Doing this, though, meant Kevin couldn’t get his seat quite as flat as normal, and sleeping in the back seat wasn’t nearly as comfortable as hoped, so both had a shocking night’s sleep.