After a coffee shop breakfast we decided to take a detour to Wineglass Bay on the way to Port Arthur, adding an hour to the travel time but view was supposed to be worth it, especially as the day was again cloudless. Wineglass Bay (named after its shape) is in the Freycinet National Park, requiring a stop at the Visitor Centre to buy a day pass. We were hoping that the Wineglass Bay lookout point would be close to the road but in fact it required a steep walk taking 90 minutes return. The view however was pretty good (see images) and as a bonus, a friendly wallaby was lurking near the car park.

We then decided to cross the peninsula for another (short) walk for a view of the cliffs on the other side. Again, a worthwhile deviation and another bonus wallaby in the car park! And a third deviation followed to Sleepy Bay with some dramatic orange rocks surrounding azure blue waters. Overall, a 3hr diversion to the national park and then a 3hr drive to a narrow isthmus near to Port Arthur called Eaglehawk Neck. Here there was a great example of a tessalated pavement - a relatively flat rock surface that is subdivided into polygons by fractures very similar to the Giant's Causeway in Ireland.

Australian humour on roads amused us. Under a road sign announcing ‘Wye River’, someone had put a similarly formal sign stating ‘Coz it’s bigger than a creek’.

After the last at Eaglehawk Neck, it was just 20 minutes more to our holiday chalet on the outskirts of Port Arthur. Having seen adverts in Hobart for Port Arthur, I had the impression that this would be a quaint little town, steeped in colonial history. Not a bit of it! There appeared to be just half a dozen shops in the centre of town, a very large amount of holiday accommodation and no port at all! In fact, Port Arthur is the site of a penal settlement which was in  operation from 1830 - 1877 and this site is now an extensive tourist attraction. We planned to investigate further the next morning.

Images from this can be found here.