The Tasman Peninsula offers a wide range of walks with varying degrees of difficulty and ranging in length from 2 hours to 4 days (the three capes walk). Yet again, the weather for our one full day on the peninsula influenced our walk selection. The Crescent Bay and Mount Brown walk appealed to us, so we set off from our campground at White Beach and headed for the carpark at start of the walk, which, to our surprise, was very busy on account of it being also the access to the Remarkable Cave.
We set off to the south in dry cloudy weather along the edge of Basket Bay, passed the Cape Raoul Lookout, with Mount Brown rising in the distance. This was a relatively easy walk along a narrow partly rocky track with occasional short sections of boardwalk.
Along the way, one of the features is a blowhole which, although well fenced, offers views straight down to the sea below, accompanied by the noise of the water swirling around below. Although it was a very windy day, the hole was not blowing, maybe because the tide was out. The track meandered closer to the base of Mount Brown, which, in my terms, is really a hill. At the base of the steep climb to the top of the hill, the track divides to the top or down to Crescent Bay. At this point we stopped to speak to fellow walkers who had descended from the top – their advice was that the top was not very interesting and may not have been worth the steep climb. We therefore decided to take the downward path to the beach, taking in the views of the whole of Crescent Bay. Once again, we could only imagine the vibrancy of the colours had the sun been shining.
The walk round the bay to the opposite end leads to a couple of blowholes, but we decided to return to the car. Nera the top of the incline from the beach, we sat on a welcome bench to take a breather. Here we were entertained by a few kids struggling up the highest dune to slide down on their body boards. I guess the hard work to climb the sand was well worth the fun of the ride down.
On returning to the junction to Mount Brown and turning right on the return leg, the wind blasting us in the face and continued to do so all the way back. Not only was this tiring, but it meant that our heads were down and not able to enjoy the views.
At the end of this two hour walk we could not leave without visiting the Remarkable Cave. This was a short walk down a lot of steps to a viewing platform which looked out through the cave to the sea beyond. There were a few brave surfers trying to make the most of the occasional decent wave (despite the wind that we had faced on the way back – I guess it was blowing in the wrong direction).
