00:00The Tasmanian Wilderness is one of the largest temperate wilderness areas remaining in the
00:09Southern Hemisphere.
00:13It's a place for people to explore, to have adventures, or to simply be with nature at
00:19its most pristine.
00:24The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area protects one of the last true wilderness regions
00:29on Earth.
00:32It protects vast tracts of high quality wilderness which harbours a wealth of outstanding natural
00:38and cultural heritage.
00:41This region supports many diverse habitats, some which are unique in the world.
00:50A diverse and beautiful mosaic of vegetation types are to be found here.
00:58Vast tracts of button grass moorlands cover the earth, and it's here where countless animals
01:02and insects visibly find food and shelter.
01:13Then it's wallabies and wombats are some of the bigger animals that thrive on the vegetation.
01:25The Tasmanian Wilderness may sound like a forbidden place for less adventurous visitors.
01:33True it has places you may never reach, but the wilderness areas encompass several national
01:38parks and reserves, parts of which are very accessible to visitors.
01:48Probably the most accessible and best known of these is Cradle Mountain Lake Sinclair
01:53National Park that's in the northwest of Tasmania.
01:59This magnificent glacial landscape is Tasmania's most popular holiday destination.
02:06It's surrounded by vast varieties of fauna and flora, and walking treks through surreal
02:11landscapes of lakes, cliffs and gorges.
02:15The park has become synonymous with the overland trek, but it offers many more fantastic short
02:21walks.
02:23These walks will take you to rugged scenes of over 25 major mountain peaks, and a wide
02:29variety of glacial formations.
02:32Cradle Mountain sits at the northern end of the National Park, and rises 1500 metres.
02:38The park covers 160,000 hectares of wild nature, and includes the glacial Lake Sinclair.
02:46This lake is 200 metres deep, and is the deepest lake in Australia.
02:53To view the mountain from all angles, there's no better way than to walk the two hour circuit
02:58track on a raised boardwalk around Dove Lake.
03:07Cradle Mountain is also home to a diversity of animals.
03:12The Tasmanian Devil live and breed in this uniquely undisturbed environment.
03:16They are the world's largest carnivorous marsupials, and have plenty of space to go about their
03:21business.
03:25Two of the world's only three surviving monotremes, the platypus and echidna, are also found in
03:30the area.
03:32They are the most primitive group of mammals in the world, and are well looked after in
03:42the protected sanctuary of Cradle Mountain, Lake Sinclair National Park.
03:52Jutting out into the sea on Tasmania's wild east coast, we find another spectacular wilderness
03:57area, the Freysenay Peninsula.
04:02Freysenay National Park is known for its knuckles of granite mountains, which are surrounded
04:07by azure bays and white sand beaches.
04:13Freysenay is Tasmania's oldest National Park, with thousands of wildflowers in bloom at
04:18the time of our visit.
04:22Some 200,000 people visit Freysenay every year, with former Tasmanian and now Denmark's
04:28Princess Mary declaring this her favourite park.
04:34With fresh winds blowing straight up from the Antarctic, Freysenay is a place of raw
04:39beauty.
04:42Josh Isles, a guide from Tasmanian Tourism, is guiding us on a boardwalk 126 metres to
04:48the top of Cape Torville.
04:52Here stands the Cape Torville Lighthouse, activated almost 40 years ago to replace an
04:57historic lighthouse at nearby Cape Forestier.
05:02It's not only these views that are invigorating.
05:05As Josh leeches down through the giant boulders, we begin to see some of the bird species that
05:10have made Freysenay their home, many of them endemic to the area.
05:16Wildlife is prolific too.
05:18These Bennett's Wallabies are one of Tasmania's most commonly seen native animals.
05:24Weighing up to 20 kilograms, their sight is poor, but their hearing excellent.
05:30They're in abundance across Tasmania, and it's reassuring to know that with less and
05:35less hunting, their numbers have been rising.
05:43What about that dazzling rainbow on the horizon?
05:47That's greeting us for the next leg of our Freysenay experience, a paddle with Simon
05:52Stubbs.
05:53We're in Coles Bay, named after the lonely Silas Coles, who extracted lime from the shells
05:59of the Aboriginal middens here in the early 19th century.
06:04Behind us, the Hazard Ranges, the dominant landmark of Freysenay.
06:09Today Simon paddles us through the same waters as French explorers Louis de Freysenay and
06:14his brother Henry when they sailed here in 1802.
06:26So many of the experiences we're having here in Freysenay are out on the water.
06:31The oysters from here are to die for, and the oyster fisherman we've chosen to fish
06:35with today is appropriately named Giles Fisher.
06:40Giles' leases are on Freysenay's malting lagoon.
06:58From the malting lagoon, we're heading over to the seaward side of Freysenay, to a bay
07:02of exquisite beauty.
07:04Shaped like a wine glass, the waters here once flowed red because of the blood from
07:09the whaling stations that operated right here.
07:13The waters of Wineglass Bay are placid these days, in contrast to the heady days of whaling
07:19in the mid 19th century.
07:22The thrashing humpbacks took out so many whaling boats, but in the end, it was the whalers
07:27who won.
07:28So many whales were slaughtered, they were almost wiped out, to the point whaling was
07:32no longer viable.
07:52On the rocks, we pass dozens of cormorants, shags on a rock, drying out after diving these
07:58waters for fish.
08:01But the animal that really wins our hearts is Rastus.
08:05He's the resident pooch on board this Freysenay sea cruise catamaran.
08:09And as skipper Graham Ellis testifies, Rastus goes into a mode of his own when he spots
08:14dolphins.
08:15Rastus!
08:16Rastus, dolphins!
08:17Rastus the dolphin dog, a fitting frenzied finale to our Freysenay affair.
08:47Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus,
09:10Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus,
09:11Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus,
09:12Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus,
09:13Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus, Rastus,
