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2001 : Cooks Beach
Well, this time, finally we decided to do ‘the big one’ - yep, a complete trip to Cooks Beach.
We packed up every thing the night(s) before and threw them in to the van and headed up the east coast to Coles Bay - on the way we stopped in Sorell to get breakfast and pick up Pete.
The weather was exellent, not too hot, not too cold, and before long we’d made it over the saddle and down to Hazards Beach.
The walk from the Hazards Beach campsite to the Cooks Beach campsite was relatively easygoing, with just a few slight hills, nothing too bad. Our main problem was that we were still buggered from the walk to Hazards itself.
Eventually we arrived, and set up camp - and discovered lots of ants… most of them making it into my tent. For the next hour everyone just sat around in a circle resting, and generally snacking until the weather changed and it got really windy and cold.
It didn’t worry me so I decided to test out my new Hand Line and wandered around to the rocks, and started casting away. Not really expecting to get anything, because I hadn’t fished in 15 years, and the wind was blowing straight on to the shore making it hard to cast, I was shocked to get a parrotfish after about 5 minutes… he was a beauty too… Mike came around to watch for a while and fish, but with no more luck for any of us, we headed back to cook the fish.
With a bit of Pete’s help and a pocket knife I managed to scale and gut the parrotfish, but found they’re a right pain to fillet (with a semi-blunt pocketknife anyway), so I gave up, and after lopping off the head, fins and tail, cooked the whole thing in a pan with some butter. Tasty! Very tasty!
After everyone else had their dinner it was time for “the Doctor” - handing out the medicinal Margeritas - which were possibly a bit too strong, although there were no complaints… (or aches and pains afterwards either!!!)
The next morning dawned overcast and cold, and we all sat around with our sore backs, and all very lethargic, having breakfast and generally trying to keep warm. The sun did eventually break through, it eventually ended up being a beautiful sunny day, where we all got sunburnt… anyway, and I headed around to the rocks to try my hand again.
Instant success! On my 3rd cast I caught another parrotfish, this one larger than the one caught last night. Mike hadn’t even arrived yet, the catch was so quick. So Mike and I cast away and almost straight away Mike got his first - this one was a baby, and we used him for bait. [I recommend using squid here as bait - they seemed to love it, and almost every cast had the fish either nibbling or taking the bait altogether - but they did take almost any type of bait] After half an hour Pete, Jim and Justin arrived and also began casting. Justin also got a fish fairly quickly with his snazzy telescoping fishing rod.
The rest of the afternoon was a complete success with everyone catching fish, and we eventually ended up with enough of flathead feed us all! Pete volunteered his services as scaler and filleter, and managed to carve us up some tasty fillets of flathead for a late lunch.
Well, after lunch it was agreed we’d pack up and hike back to Hazards, so as to break up the return journey in to smaller bits!
Well after setting up camp (again) at Hazards, we settled down to a meal of dehydrated meal packs, and basically rested again. After another visit from “the Doctor”, everyone wandered down to the beach and sat on the rocks for a while before retiring to the sack.
I got woken up around 4am by the sound of rain hitting the tent. Very deja vu for me, coz this was what happened on the very first trip. Eventually I got out of bed around 8am (it wan’t raining but looked like it was about to) and waited till everyone else was up, and we had brekkie, and generally started slowly packing up. Then Justin decided to take on the Wrath of the Lord, and complain about the weather, funnily enough, it started getting worse, wind, rain, you name it… even our Tripod Of Doom, designed to keep evil spirits away failed to stop the weather…
After hiding in our tents for half an hour I decided there was no point in just waiting, and so we ventured out in to the storm and started packing up. Which is always fun in the wind, rain, and did I mention wind?
Another wave of deja vu hit when we eventually wandering down on to the beach, and found half the beach underwater, with large waves washing up and a high tide threatening to soak us…
We slowly made our way back to Wineglass Bay, and stopped for a well deserved rest before tackling the Saddle.
We all took the Saddle fairly slowly, and before long we’d made it to the top, which only left the easy road down to the carpark where we waited for everyone to arrive…
Once everyone was packed in to the van, we headed aroud to the local shop for snacks and then headed home - not without incident! We decided that the cost of petrol in Coles Bay was a bit high, so we’d get some at Swansea (the next and larger town). So we get to Swansea, and what do you know! It’s shut… so here we are with less than an eighth of a tank of fuel and it’s 80kms to Triabunna, and 100kms back to Coles Bay - so we took the challenge and attempted to drive to Triabunna… we got there… just…
Luckily Triabunna had an open Service Station, and we filled up and continued our journey home. We ran into more storms and hail just out side of Orford but the rest of the trip was uneventful.
We eventually arrived home, and replentished our energy by having a huge feast of KFC… Ahh! Bliss!
All in all, it was a good trip, and I found myself in not too bad a shape the next day, with no real aches and pains, only a fair bit of sunburn…
When will we return? Next summer! We plan to hike to Hazards, and camp there - then the next day, take a relaxing walk to Cooks, with just some lunch, water, and hand lines for a days fishing…