Rocky Cape National Park, Tasmanian Beauty

Tasmania boasts a vast number of national parks, and there is undoubtedly a park for every person, a different sort as it were. The first national park that I stopped off at was Rocky Cape, on the north west coast “leg” of our tour of Tasmania. It was nothing like what you would expect.

We were driving into the national park with no idea what we should expect. I’ve been to quite a few national parks in my lifetime. Usually they have pretty little visitor centres, public facilities and in a lot of places there are so many tourists you can’t get a proper look. Heading into Rocky Cape was different though, and we were greeted straight away with “mountains” or hills, whatever you want to call them.

Rocky Cape, as you might guess, was deserted. There was literally me and my cousin there, until 2 guys showed up with their kayak to head out into the bay. Where we parked, we were quite literally alone in the middle of nowhere, with the sun bearing down, a chilled breeze to cool us and nothing but beautiful 360 degree views.

The water here was crystal clear, as you can probably see from the various images in this post. The hillsides are green and rocky, and there are a few short walks nearby. We actually went for a trek along a few of the walks, but for the most part they led us through the trees on the mountainsides towards some small aboriginal caves. Being respectful tourists, we stayed out.

The further along the coast we walked, the more of the surrounding landscape we could see. As the title image shows, we were more or less sat exclusively in a bay with nobody else around for miles, at least that we could see.

Further back along the path we came in by, there was a “short” walking track for a “50 minute” “walk”. We headed up the hillside, as you can expect. Turns out, it was less of a “walk” and more of a “hike”. Eventually we made it to the highest point we could reach before taking some ridiculous selfies and making a quick FaceTime call to show off where we were to other family members, as you do.

And this is the reason why:

This amazing view was a full panoramic from the rocks we had decided to climb onto and turn into our temporary throne. 

It literally made no difference which way we turned, the views were simply stunning. Although we hadn’t scaled to a ridiculous height, it was quite a steep climb and we certainly welcomed the break once we’d reached the top. For reference, this is a picture taken in the direction we’d climbed:

You can just about make out the lower path on this picture, on the right hand side. Not the winding path that’s about half way up, the one much further down. You might also notice a few buildings on the left side of the picture. It looks like this place was some sort of holiday park, but as I mentioned before, the place was deserted!

And just so you don’t miss out a single bit of Rocky Cape, here’s just one more picture that I took from the height of the “mountain” as I’m going to claim it was.

I will say, wearing shorts was definitely not the wisest decision we made on the first day. At least for Rocky Cape. The plants growing on the hillside have a nasty habit of scratching your legs, but we didn’t realise this until about half way up when we no longer had the will power to trek back and start our climb again in more suitable clothing.

These things are the culprits. Burnt pineapples as far as I’m concerned. Beware of them, they’re definitely evil.

I also started the “Shizza shot” series on the first day, where I would try to randomly take a macro shot of something along the way for a friend. Well, here it is:

And just like that, we were back on the road heading towards Cradle Mountain. Judging by the serious lack of people at Rocky Cape it appears to be one of the lesser known national parks in Tasmania, but don’t let that fool you. If you’re willing to put in a bit of effort and make the small climbs, it’s actually, in my opinion, one of the more beautiful and easily accessible parts of Tassie.

If you’re heading over that way, make sure to stop by. I guarantee you won’t regret it. Unless you hate hiking or climbing, but then again you can always go for a swim while the fun people scale the rocks, right?

Just for good measure: