Coles Bay & Freycinet National Park

Although Moulting Lagoon is large there aren’t many places where you can reach it from the land. One is off the Coles Bay Road heading for Bicheno, 17Km from Coles Bay village area. There’s a car park, the entrance to which is marked by a small triangular green and white sign indicating a Greening Australia project. In winter this can be boggy. If so, park on the road side. From the car park a track runs down to the water. Here you may find thousands of birds, or again you may not, as being wild birds their presence can’t be guaranteed. Moulting Lagoon is home to 8000 black swans, more when most of the rest of Tasmania’s swan population arrive to moult. In spring there are often hundreds of cygnets. There is usually a good selection of ducks – black, musk, mountain, wood and chestnut and grey teal. Cormorants, terns, pelicans and sometimes migratory waders are also to be found. A pair of good binoculars will be a big help if the birds are all over the other side.

A closer entry point to Coles Bay is down Rocks and River Road. If you are heading towards Bicheno this is the next road on your left after the golf club. It ends in a T junction. If you turn left the road ends in a couple of hundred metres at a free camping area. Lots of shells are embedded in the sandy edges of the track down to the water. This is another Aboriginal midden. As you can imagine, Moulting Lagoon was a popular hunting spot with local Aborigines. What a pleasant sheltered place this must have been for them to over winter. The shells indicate the presence nearby of extensive shellfish beds. In fact at low tide you can still gather pipis (clams) without even getting your feet wet.

If you drive to the right at the T junction you will reach Meredith Point, named after another early settler. Drive slowly as Bennett’s wallabies often dash across the road. We have several times been fortunate to see a pair of white-breasted sea eagles in a dead tree here. Meredith Point is another spot where you may or may not see lots of birds. Again, binoculars will be useful.

The final entry point to this side of Moulting Lagoon is down Flacks Rd. This is on your left near Freycinet Marine Farm. The road is unmade and corrugated so drive slowly. You will eventually come to a car park. Climb the stile and follow the fence down to the water. If it’s low tide and the migratory waders have arrived from the northern hemisphere this is a good place to see them. Failing that there are almost certain to be pelicans, black swans, chestnut breasted shelducks, oystercatchers and cormorants. Binoculars will be useful here too.

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