My early morning walk took me to Peggy’s Point in Bicheno – supposedly a great place to spot whales. But I didn’t see any.

I thought the early morning light was amazing, and the only other people I could share it with was a family of three, who were hopeful of spotting a whale or two as well.

I left them there though, as had some other places to discover.

After breakfast, Mick and I headed south towards Coles Bay and the Freycinet Peninsula. We have found that the weather in Tasmania reminds us of France in Autumn – the sun is at its hottest in the late afternoon. While the temperature was around 15°C, it looked and felt much colder.

Mick’s eyes lit up as he spotted the sign for fresh oysters and mussels. So, of course I stopped and he purchased a dozen (but he actually got 14) un-shucked oysters for $14, and a kilo of mussels for $12. This later made us a great lunch.

Mick reminded me though that our main focus for the day was to try some East Coast wines. We have so far tried the West Tamar Wines and Coal River Valley wines, and today we would visit two East Coast wineries.

First stop was a very impressive set up at Devil’s Corner. The structure behind Mick is a tower you can climb in order to get a view of the vineyard and its location.

I decided to climb the stairs so I could enjoy the view.

Not really.

Today there were several cars amongst the vines as they were picking grapes today – like many of the vineyards we have visited during our stay in Tasmania.

This was another ‘first’ for wine tasting experiences. While this place looked super fancy with a pizza bar and fresh oyster bar, the wines listed for sale were much cheaper than anywhere else we had been. The prices starting around $25.

Mick accidentally chose the $15 tasting option (he really wanted the $20 option, as that came with a person who would talk to him about the wines he was tasting). Anyway, for his $15 he received a paddle of five different wines. He was also told that if he bought wine after the tasting he would get 10% off the price. (Big deal!!)

He was told he had to scan the barcode and that would bring up the tasting notes for each of the five wines he had paid for. Unfortunately, the phone signal was so poor in this location (for our phones anyway), he could not access the website or the notes. So Mick made his own.

The bubbles were OK (but pretty flat as he had been poured some from the almost empty bottle, and I must add that Mick always likes bubbles!!), the pinot gris tasted like pi## (but he is not a fan of pinot gris or pinot grigio at the best of times), the sauvignon blanc was wonderful (but I smelt it and it smelt like a NZ sav blanc – and I don’t like them at all), the rosé smelt and tasted like rose petals, and the pinot noir was very bland.

We left without buying any wine from here, despite it being the cheapest we had come across.

Less than 500m away was the Freycinet Vineyard. Talk about ‘chalk and cheese’.

This place was busy picking grapes too, but the cellar door was right next to the wine making shed. Here we both tasted the wines, and the price was $5 per person for 6 wines (Mick actually had 7) and if you bought wine you did not pay the tasting fee.

Mick chose a Riesling and I chose a Cabernet Merlot (which was 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Cabernet Franc and 15% Merlot – but as it is not written anywhere on the bottle or in the notes, so don’t quote me on that!).

Later in the day, Mick and I visited a well-known area of Bicheno called ‘The Gulch’. Here we found a fish and chip restaurant / bar – called The Gulch.

This area is where the boats access the ocean. Those granite rocks you can see in the background make up a small island called Governor Island, and they provide a good shelter for the boats.

In the end, we decided to eat dinner at the Lobster Shack. Both of us had the seafood chowder.

We are enjoying our stay at Bicheno.

And we have a few activities planned for tomorrow.