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Published: February 20th 2010
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Maja and I
Atop boulders on Mount Amos Camp site and ants in my...
So the camp site or
"Camp Beer" as I decided to call it because of its payment in beer was secluded in the middle of bush, surrounded by eucalyptus and gum trees. But there were dangers too. We were told to watch out for the ants
Myrmecia pilosula to be exact - better known as the
Jack Jumper ant or Hopper ant which is native to Tasmania. One of the world’s most deadly! It's estimated that 10 per cent of the Tasmanian population may be allergic to the Jack Jumper, with around 3 per cent suffering
life threatening anaphylaxsis if attacked.. Although 3%!m(MISSING)ay seem small, jack jumper ants cause more deaths in Tasmania than spiders, snakes, wasps, and sharks combined. So it was with this knowledge that the younger tour guide decided to carelessly dump all of our bags onto an ant's nest.
Can you guess what happened next? As I went to collect my bag one of these hoppers latched onto my bare foot and stung me. Yeh, nice one tour guide. It was a bit sore but luckily I'm not the allergic type. But that night I chose to sleep in a tent
rather than a swag.
We all sat around the fire as I got stuck into my box of wine - a
goon bag.
Eighth Day
The Freycinet promontory was surveyed in 1802 by the French captain Nicolas Baudin and was named after his lieutenant, Louis-Claude de Saulces de Freycinet. It was this lot of nosey French explorers that sparked the British to claim and settle Tasmania.
In the travel notes I made for this part of my trip I have written,
“Big f**k-off walk at Freycinet National Park”. What I should have added was
"lots of bleeping tourists" - the most touristic place I'd been to in Tasmania so far. For example, camping is so popular that a ballot system operates over Summer and Easter and is drawn in early August.
It was a very hot day when we took a track up a fairly steep climb to the saddle between Mt Amos and Mt Mayson - along with the rest of the chattering tourist masses. We eventually reached a lookout on the top and one of Tasmania's most celebrated views over the beautiful white sands of
Wineglass Bay. Maja and I then took
a steep descending track full of highly sough-after Freycinet granite (New Parliament House in Canberra is made of it). The track to the bay took about forty five minutes or so and when we arrived, we were disappointed to find that the water was full of stinging jellyfish, so no swimming. It was a beautiful beach it has to be said. The sand was lovely. So, we just lay down, ate our sandwiches and slept for an hour or so, watching when wallabies came hopping along to be fed by tourists.
It’s a very beautiful national park is Freycinet but it suffers a bit from its own popularity.
Wind: Beach
Hiking back we then drove further up the coast and were let off at a beach and told to walk up the beach where we would be met again. It was a very nice beach, rolling surf coming in but with an incredibly blustery head wind - so we put our jackets on and. Further along the beach Maja and I ducked behind one of the sand dunes that lined the whole of this beach to get our breath back.
Back at our campsite Maja and
Wineglass Bay
Austrian alseep I went down to the boulder-strewn creek for a swim in the early evening sun. The water temperature was warm then cold but mostly warm and refreshing. I got stuck into my goon bag of cheap red wine when we got back, refreshed and hungry.
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