Today we drove 200 kilometers northeast from Hobart to Coles Bay. This is where the Freycinet National Park is. We are going to hike to the famous Wine Glass Bay Tomorrow. Today it is cold and windy and we have even encountered some trees that are turning gold and red. We followed a scenic route named The Convict Trail.

We stopped at a small roadside botanical park. There were good examples of most of the Tasmanian vegetation. Apparently it is very dry here. The gardens were labeled; dry climate, very dry climate and mild climate and so on. The vegetation here is not nearly as exciting as in the rain forest. There was a picnic area with some cool metal statues. It began to rain as we were walking around so we had to make the mad dash back to the car before we could see everything. The entire island of Tas is very Eco conscious and this rest stop had a waterfall that only turned on when it detected a car in the driveway.

We drove through the historic town of Richmond and on to the tiny town of Buckland to see the St John the Baptist Methodist Church. This church is an exact replica of the church in England and when the church In England was destroyed they were somehow able to secure the original stained glass window and transport it to Tassie. The window depicts the life of St John the Baptist and is absolutely beautiful. In the yard of the church an old tree was cut down several years ago and someone carved St John baptizing Jesus in the old trunk.

During our drive along the river and through small canyons we could see the old convict road that was built in the mid 1800's. There are several old bridges still standing that we stopped to photograph. After Buckland the road turned towards the coast. We drove through fields of sheep and admired the eucalyptus and gum trees. We hit the coast and the second half of our drive was along the water. The scenery was amazing but the weather was not. We tried to get pictures when we could. Unfortunately the weather is forecast to be cold, wet and windy most of the time we are here.

We are staying at a B&B tonight and tomorrow night just outside of The Freycinet National Park. The owners emailed me pages of stuff to see and do during our drive from Hobart. They recommended we stop for lunch at The Ugly Duck Out in Swansea, so we did. This was a fantastic recommendation. The Duck as the locals call it was an eco friendly, organic restaurant serving only local food. I had a fish stew that included black salmon. I have never had black salmon before and it tasted like pot roast. It was one of the most interesting meals I have had since we left home.

After lunch we stopped at The Molting Lagoon. This is home to 14 species of birds including over 8000 black swans. It was drizzling so we quickly stopped and snapped a few photos and moved on.

As we got closer to Coles Bay we stopped at a couple of cellar doors in hopes of finding a nice bottle of wine to go with our salad and cheese and crackers we picked up for dinner. We did buy bottle of Cabernet for only $23 that we liked very much. I love tasting wine before we purchase. It is an excellent way of knowing that we will enjoy it.

We pulled in to The Sheoaks B&B around 3pm and checked in and then immediately went back out to explore the area. We went to the Freycinet National Park visitor center to see what the park had to offer. I bought a desperately needed fleece and we purchased our pass for tomorrow. We spoke with a Ranger and picked our hike for tomorrow as well. We stopped in the tiny town of Coles Bay on the way back and chose a restaurant and made dinner reservations for tomorrow evening.

We went back to Sheoaks and watched the sunset and enjoyed our bottle of wine we picked up during our drive today. We noticed that the movie collection here included "The African Queen." A few months ago we were in Key Largo and saw the African Queen boat. We decided back then we should see the movie sometime. We made dinner and sat and watched it. The owner came out and made a fire in the wood stove for us. We all enjoyed the movie and the fire including the cat who curled up in front of the fireplace like a dog.