water at Freycinet

[Drew]

I'm coming to Tassie from Melbourne in a couple of weeks to do the Freycinet Circuit and then to go to Mona Foma. Just wondering about water availability on the walk. A couple of the people in the group have no overnight walking experience and are perhaps not all that fit, so we're planning on doing it as a leisurely walk over 3 days. I'd planned to do it anti-clockwise, as recommended by Parks. I understand that there's a water tank at the Cooks Hut campsite but that water near the Wineglass Bay campsite is less reliable. Anyone been recently and know if the creeks are flowing?

I guess the alternative would be to do it clockwise and carry water in for the first night at Wineglass Bay. I think asking the newbies to carry 2 day's water over Mt Graham might be a bit much!

Cheers,

Drew

[MrWalker]

Don't rely on any water on the track in summer, except possibly at Cooks Hut.
The area is notorious for day hikers running out of water and it may be best to go to Cooks hut first, then if the water supply there is limited you can go straight back without climbing the hill.If there is enough water then you can fill up before leaving, taking enough to get all the way out.

[Scottyk]

Yep, it may be found but unreliable. Make sure you carry good water treatment/filtration so you can take advantage of dodgy water you may have to rely on.
Ask the staff at the parks and wildlife office at the entry to the peninsula before you depart, they will tell you if cooks has water and any other likely spots.
Enjoy the walk, it is a magic area.

[Drew]

Thanks for the replies. I was assuming that the water at Cooks at least was reliable but from what you say MrWalker it sounds like even that might not be the case? I'll call the parks office and see what they have to say. I usually prefer to ask about water availability on this forum rather than asking parks staff who have to be exceptionally conservative with their advice so as to avoid being sued!

[julzybear]

we just did a walk at freycinet for new years, we camped at hazards beach so didn't visit the cooks beach campsite but there was flowing water in the creek by the hazards beach campsite and also in the creeks on the cooks beach side of mt graham. there didn't look like there was any water at the wineglass bay campsite though. i would recommend taking sterilisation drops/tablets etc though as there are a LOT of tourists in the area at the moment. there was also a morbidly obese possum hanging around at our campsite which repeatedly gnawed at the side of the tent until it got into the milk and bananas inside our tent, so beware!!

[Eremophila]

We did this in Nov 2012 and the staff at the Parks office/entry station had absolutely no clue about water availability, either at Cooks Beach or otherwise on the track. As it turned out there are 3(?) tanks at Cooks, however these would have been depleted now over the Christmas/New Year period.
Tassie has had plenty of rain this spring so you may be lucky enough to find potable creekwater. I wouldn't count on anything at Wineglass. It's not far from Wineglass back out to the starting point, so you don't need too much water for the final morning.
Oh yes and the wildlife are very enthusiastic about getting into your gear!

[Zone-5]

Discovered this spot by accident on a newbie drive around Tas. in 2011. Grabbed a cabin again later and stayed for a week, beautiful it was..

[Drew]

I was battling some very big and bold possums myself over New Years at Wilson's Prom! Did it actually chew through your tent julzybear? That's always been my fear with keeping food inside the tent.

I think we'll just go clockwise so we only have to carry water for the first night a short distance in to Wineglass.

[Strider]

I had a possum get in under my tent vestibule, unzip my pack, remove my rubbish bag and proceed to tear it to shreds at Cooks Beach a couple of months back. All while I sat 5m away and didn't hear a thing!

[Drew]

My experience at the Sealers Cove was almost identical - I awoke to rustling and found the enormous possum in my vestibule right next to me! It had unzipped the top of my pack and found a zip-lock bag of pesto. I chased it away and as I was arranging things in my pack (inside the tent now) I turned and saw that the possum was pack in the vestibule, looking like it was about to climb inside the tent!

[Zone-5]

Possums/rodents really didn't like this stinky stuff at our camp sites in a fire safe tin.
I call it 'Pong Ping' and it's burn time is long enough for both dinner as well as sleep.
I always carry some on an overnight hike for overly inquisitive night visitors.

[Doonish]

I was at Cooks Beach last year in the middle of January after a very dry November/December and was surprised to find plenty of water in the tanks. With the rain we've had recently I imagine you'd be fine there.

The rivulets though are a total lottery. We carried water from Cooks.

We did this in Nov 2012 and the staff at the Parks office/entry station had absolutely no clue about water availability, either at Cooks Beach or otherwise on the track

+1 for my trip.

[Drew]

We're thinking we might extend it to 3 nights, first night at Wineglass, carrying water in for night 1 and day 2, second night at Cooks, with water from tanks, 3rd night at Hazards (where Julzybear says water was flowing at New Years). If other walkers tell us that there's no water at Hazards I guess we'll carry it from Cooks or walk out. If anyone has been since new years I'd be keen to hear reports of course.
Interesting about possums aversion to citronella and sandalwood coils! Might take some.

[Strider]

Its only about 2 hours walking from Cooks Beach to the Hazards Beach campsite. My recommendation would be to stay two nights at Cooks - magical spot!

[north-north-west]

Yeah, that gives you time for a leisurely stroll out to Bryans - the best place on the Peninsula - which is a wonderful place to camp but lacks reliable water.

[Drew]

We had a great walk with perfect weather. Did first night at Wineglass (there may have been drinkable water up the creek a bit, but we carried ours in), second night at Cooks and third at Hazards.

The first person we spoke to in the Parks office at Freycinet was completely useless. She seemed to want to dissuade us from doing the walk as planned because she had serious doubts about there being water at Cooks, and said there was no water anywhere else. We then spoke to another staff member who told us that there was plenty of water at Cooks and that we'd have no problems! These two were working behind the same desk but had completely different thoughts!

The most astounding thing though was that there were two Parks and Wildlife volunteers staying in the hut at Cooks. There is perfect phone reception there (and the hut has a solar panel so presumedly the volunteers can charge phones). Why the hell wouldn't the office staff just call the volunteers every few days to check on the water situation, instead of telling walkers that there is no way of knowing?!?!?

There was also fresh water in the creek at Hazards, a couple of creeks flowing on the descent from Mt Graham down to Cooks, and a spring on the other side of Mt Graham flowing strongly, just a couple of metres off the track.

Anyway, a lovely walk. The beaches are absolutely stunning and not too cold for swimming.

Apart from the incompetent parks staff, the only negative was the possums, which are absolutely out of control. Be warned!

[Zone-5]

It would be great if some could GPS mark those water spots and post it here so we won't have to spend those tired hours searching out every vague dead end...

[Eremophila]

This is such a shame for Tassie tourism. A world-renowned site, and one heavily featured in their advertising, yet walkers are unable to obtain basic and essential information.

[wander]

We pottered about the loop in November 2013 and was amazed that we were the only people who did not do their washing up in the water supply creek at Wine Glass Bay. So I would be very wary of that water.

It would be helpful if Parks could put up a little sign saying do not wash up in this creek.

[Orion]

I asked at the visitor center last week and all they knew for certain was that Cook's had water in the tank. I expected that answer but was hoping they'd had some reports. As it turned out there was water in just about every creek. I walked clockwise and started finding flowing water about 90 minutes above Wineglass Bay. It would have been nice to know this in advance, even though I was day walking and could easily carry what I needed. But with a pack such information would be valuable. Maybe there could be something as simple a logbook at the registration booth for water reports from visitors?

[Tas Tom]

A brief update on water & PWS communication after spending last weekend kayaking and walking at Freycinet:

Plenty of water still in the tanks at Cooks Beach (since some recent upgrade works by PWS at the hut there are now three rainwater tanks there) as well as water available from the creek at Hazards Beach camp site and a trickle in two of the creeks on the way up from Cooks to Mt Graham.

Met a couple of walkers coming the other way (up from Wineglass to Mt Graham) who were relieved that we could confirm there was water at Cooks as PWS had said there was none. This despite the Volunteers still being stationed at Cooks..........

[Drew]

I emailed some feedback to Parks about this. I guess it hasn't been read by anyone in the Freycinet office just yet!

[Drew]

It seems my feedback has done some good after all. I got this reply from Parks yesterday:

"Thank you for your feedback from the 28 January 2014. Your comments are all very correct on all accounts and I appreciate the feedback very much. As a result the communications between the volunteers and the staff regarding tank water at Cooks Beach has improved with regular “sit reps” now including a water update for the visitor centre reception staff. The signage for “Fuel Stove Only” will be reviewed and consideration given to the perpetual “fed wildlife” issue.

Once again thank you for the feedback."

[sixfingers]

The Fuel Stove Only sign would be a great review as we've just returned from Cooks Beach yesterday. There is a mass of wind felled she-oaks everywhere creating a mass of deadwood everywhere that would benefit from burning especially during the cooler months. Water was still no problem with the advantage of a funnel to prevent wasteage but a chux cloth would be handy to filter the tank water.

[Erica]

I know it's a bit last minute, but anyone have any idea what the water might be like at the Wineglass campsite at the moment? We're going down tomorrow for a couple of days, taking the little one on a camping adventure. I think that since this rain there might be some, but would love some advice from people who've been there/know the area. Sounds like if we are running low on the 2nd day I should be able to go for a walk and find something somewhere!

Thanks

[Son of a Beach]

I just did the Freycinet circuit with my kids over three days on the Easter weekend. We started walking on the Saturday and the day before there was quite a lot of rain. Nevertheless there was no running water in any of the creeks we crossed and not even any puddles apart from a bit of mud in one of them.

We didn't get to the Wineglass Bay campsite (walked from Cooks, across Isthmus to Nth Wineglass and then out all in one day). We carried enough water to last us for three days, because we knew the water was unreliable, and that even if there was water in the Cooks tanks, we may not get that far (with kids as young as 5 we were prepared to stop and camp at Hazards beach if necessary - although our 5 year old ended up doing a valiant 7.5 hours and got all the way to Cooks Beach on the first day without much complaining - I was very impressed - walking with another family of kids gave them the extra motivation they needed, I think).

Instead of carrying water to cook with, we carried all fresh food (nothing dried) and therefore did not need any water to cook with. Of course this meant heavier food, but we did not waste weight carrying cooking water at all.

Turns out there was plenty of water in the Cooks beach water tanks last week (lots of mosquito wrigglies in there too, but easy to filter out by pouring your water from one pot to another).

We walked in one day, and out on the third day. On the second day, we did the easy walk from Cooks to Bryans Beach and back again, with a lovely lunch at Bryans with the kids playing on the beach for a couple of hours. Fantastic walk - apart from carrying soooo much water (which I don't usually do) and two tents and three sleeping bags. The price of walking with very young kids.

[eggs]

We went through the circuit from 23rd to 25th Apr. There was a short but heavy rain on the 24th and we found trickling water on the climb up to Freycinet saddle and extensively on the way over and down Graham.
Did not try the outlets at Wineglass or Hazards, but we met some who thought water from those pools was OK. The Wineglass pool looked suss - but knowing it was flowing you could probably go up stream a bit to get to the flow.

Trickling Pool on the plateau coming down from Graham

[jmac]

Both the Wineglass and Hazards Beach creeks are flowing and providing good water at the moment. Just walk upstream a short distance away from each campsite. At Cooks Beach the front tank has wrigglers but the tank around the back of the hut is clear. (I have used all three sites in the last 3 days, and have used Wineglass four times since summer with school groups, with no problems.) There is also excellent fresh water in the small creek half way up the northern side of Mt. Graham. Enjoy.

[JimJones]

Heading over to Freycinet with my son in 2 days to do the full circuit. Can anyone comment on water availability currently?

I'm planning for the worst, carrying about 6 litres myself, with my son carrrying 3-4. But if there is water at Cooks as I've read that would be greatly received!

Cheers,

Jim

[L_Cham_67]

I don't know how relevant this will be, but i walked the circuit in late November 2015, and fortunately there was enough water for the busy campsite that night. The creeks between the carpark and Cooks Beach were all dry except for the stream at Hazards Beach campsite (which was in stark contrast to my trip there in December 2014, where all creeks were flowing). There was no water at Bryan's Beach, while there were only a couple of places to collect water on the walk over the mountain, and even they had very little water.

I think the tanks at Cooks Beach are generally reliable, but obviously it'd be practical to check with PWS first.